


And Ask No Leave of Thee

by covertius, Little_white_angel



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe: Fairies and Fairy Tales, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Content warning: implications of canon-typical child abuse, Content warning: non-explicit references to dubcon betewwn the fairies and their captives, Illustrated, M/M, other canon characters appearing in minor roles, tam lin au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-08-28 18:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 63,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16728681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/covertius/pseuds/covertius, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_white_angel/pseuds/Little_white_angel
Summary: Don’t step into a fairy ring; Never speak Their names aloud; If you encounter one, be polite - but do not take anything they offer you.  Laurent knows the old rules for surviving life adjacent to the Faerie realm.  And the one new rule:  do not go to Marlas, where a fae warrior awaits who, if you cannot defeat him in single combat, will steal a tribute from you as payment for trespassing - a ring, a cloak, or a tumble in the grass.  But six years after his brother disappeared there, Laurent has no choice but to go again and again to seek the truth of what happened to him and find a way to bring him home.  It is an adventure that will take him into the Faerie realm itself - but when he learns that the guardian he’s been visiting is actually a mortal prince held captive by the fae, it will take all his cleverness (and the help of both men) to rescue both his brother and the man he loves





	1. Prologue

**Six Years Ago**

“Delfeur has been part of Vere for ninety years,” said King Aleron, leaning forward across the negotiating table, “Whatever Akielos’s claims on it once were, it has become our land.”

“And for ninety years, you were strong enough to keep it,” King Theomedes said, not sneering, but simply, as if stating a harsh but inescapable truth. “That situation has changed.”

Next to him, the other Akielons stared forward, grim and self-assured. Arrogance on the part of Akielos had always brought out the worst in his father, and Auguste jumped in quickly before the King could respond.

“Exalted,” he said, using the Akielon title in respect before switching back to Veretian, “The Battle of Sanpelier was already bloody and costly for both sides. Whoever wins the final campaign, I assure you we are strong enough to make you pay for every yard.”

“Akielos is not afraid of battle.”

“Nor is Vere. But there has already been great loss on both sides. I know your country feels the absence of your Crown Prince, as we are in mourning for our Queen.”

In the midst of the tense situation, Auguste experienced the now familiar pang of sorrow that came to him when he thought of his mother - of the soft, sad days of her final illness, that he would never see her again, healthy and thriving, or be able to visit her sickroom. Theomedes’s jaw tightened.

“And this should make us battle-shy? Do not presume to tell me how I feel about my son - it would do my heart well if he had died cleanly on the sword, in pride and honor, instead of lost in the mist of strange lands and stranger people.”

Until then, they had been speaking their own languages, translators on both sides conveying the words as each spoke, but Theomedes had responded directly in a clear, precise Veretian that made Auguste feel wrong-footed as he tried again. “I only meant, Exalted, that both our royal houses know the pain of grieving for family, and are conscious of the seriousness of spreading that pain to others. Must there be other fine young men who never return home - must more children across our lands feel the death of a parent? Surely we can resolve this conflict without bringing on our people further sorrow.”

Theomedes considered this, stoic and silent. Then he turned to Aleron and resumed speaking through the translators. “Your son speaks with wisdom beyond his years. We will not seek the glory of war if it is not needed. The area of Delpha that the Good People have claimed, we will set as a no man’s land, and make of that the new border. North of it, we shall acknowledge to be Vere; Akielos will retake what lies south.”

“That gives you almost the entire territory!” protested Lord Tours, there for the meeting in recognition of his importance in the army. “Marlas was built in the north!”

“Near the _original_ border of Vere and Akielos,” responded Prince Kastor, the bastard, now wearing the pin of the Crown Prince in the absence of his brother. In the pause that followed, as the Veretians determined whether to acknowledge him by responding, one of the Akielon Kyroi spoke.

“North of Marlas is where the greatest concentration of Veretians who moved into Delpha after it was taken settled, is it not?” he said, “This course would right the old wrong without requiring many of your own people to change allegiance.”

“We would grant free passage to any Veretian peasants who wish to move back across the new border,” Theomedes offered, “We see no need to claim them in addition to our territory.”

“A generous offer,” Auguste’s uncle said, “To give yourselves the bulk of the land without the work of conquering it, and in return only that you will ‘allow’ the people living on it to become our refugees instead of your slaves. Now we see the famous honor and fair-dealing of Akielos.”

“We are not the ones negotiating after losing one battle, and with the certainty of losing others still to come.”

Auguste leaned over and whispered in his father’s ear. “Is the general idea of splitting the territory something we are open to?”

His father motioned his acceptance for Auguste to put forth a counter-offer.

“Akielos has already invaded Delfeur as far north as Sanpelier,” he said, looking between both Kings, “That splits the province nearly in half as is. Perhaps drawing a new border there is something we could discuss.”

Theomedes shook his head. “The Fair Ones have been more active in mortal affairs this past year than is their wont, as we are both too well aware. We require a border on the land they’ve claimed around Marlas, to keep our eyes on what they do. That is non-negotiable.”

“Perhaps that is all the more reason to leave Marlas firmly ensconced in Vere, and make it our problem,” Auguste suggested.

Out of the corner of his eye, Auguste saw his Uncle lean forward and whisper something in his father’s ear. The King rose angrily, the other Veretians hurriedly standing with him.

“Vere will not stay at this table and be insulted by contemptuous offers for injurious treaties. When you have something to offer that respects her might and majesty, we shall hear you; if not, we meet over swords.”

Theomedes inclined his head. “Until the battlefield.”

Auguste, bewildered, had risen with his father but still half-clung to his seat. His uncle was the best man they had for negotiations, and he had always stressed to them that Akielons honored strength, that it was sometimes better to cut off talks with them prematurely than continue in weak negotiations and degrade their respect. But why would he prompt his father to end the session now? There must be undercurrents that Auguste could not see, but it seemed to him that they had finally found hope for making progress -

“The Good People have taken what is precious from both of us, but that should not make us enemies,” Auguste pleaded, unsure which King he was appealing to. It was Theomedes who spoke, and again in Auguste’s own tongue.

“We were enemies before they moved, young Prince of Vere, but I will tell you this. They took my son from me, and deprived us of our greatest warrior; but we have other warriors, and our army is strong. You led your army well at the Battle of Sanpelier, but the Fair Folk took the land around your fort, and Vere has never done well with pitched battle on an open field. Without the fort of Marlas, you cannot hope to prevail.”

 

“What are you doing?”

Auguste jumped and turned towards the voice. At the stable door stood his little brother, fully dressed despite the hour, but in one of his front-lacing jackets, crooked like he had done it up himself.

“Laurent.” Auguste forced a smile. “What are you doing here so early? It’s not even dawn yet.”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I came to visit the horses. Why are you saddling yours?”

Auguste looked back over what he was doing. He had nearly finished putting up the tack; it was too late to pretend there was nothing going on.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said instead, “Go back to your tent, and see if you can get some sleep.”

Laurent ran his eyes over Auguste, taking in the armor he was wearing.

“You’re going to try to go to Marlas, aren’t you?” he said, eyes narrowed, “Uncle said you must not go to Marlas!”

“I should have gone there months ago. I’ve let Uncle keep me away for too long.”

“We’ve sent all our best fighters, and none of them have prevailed.”

“We have not sent our best fighter yet, because I have not gone.”

“And if you don’t come back?” Laurent’s voice was very small, then. “Huchon came back with his sword between his legs, but Clamens was found dead on the border.”

Auguste swallowed. Clamens had been one of the masters who taught him, better with a blade than anyone he knew save for Auguste himself. He had been found formally laid out, back straight with his arms crossed over the sword lying on his chest. His face and armor had been cleaned, and he would have looked prepared for a formal burial if it had not been for the rent in his mail, and the red shock of a wound showing through it.

“I will endeavor to return,” he promised, pulling Laurent into a quick embrace “But until I do, Father will need his Princes by his side. You and Uncle must stick by him.”

Laurent returned the hug and then pulled away. “We are on the eve of war and you would be leaving us.”

Auguste led his horse out of the stall.

“It is for Vere that it must be tried. Have courage, little brother,” he said, ruffling Laurent’s hair, “When have you ever known me to lose?”

Auguste mounted his horse and rode through the camp in the predawn light.

He did not return the next day, defeated and ashamed.

His body did not return to the border, lying dead and still.

Auguste rode towards Marlas, and he never came back at all.

 


	2. Chapter 1

_Oh I forbid you, maidens all,_  
_That wear gold in your hair,_  
_To come and go by Marlas hall,  
_ _For young Damen is there._

Laurent’s few memories of Marlas from when he was young involved copses of good hunting ground, expanses of tilled fields, and bustling towns and villages nestled in the shadow of the great fort. Now, less than seven years later, even the area beyond what the fae had claimed had been abandoned, and he had ridden through fallow fields and wild undergrowth long before reaching the red rust border that surrounded the fae’s territory - a marker created from the decay of all the iron that they had expelled from the land they’d taken. Here on the other side, the cleared land immediately surrounding the walls, meant to give a view of coming invaders, had become a riot of tall grasses and strange blossoms - pointed petals as transparent and shining as stained glass, huge trumpets tall as sunflowers that spread open to the sky without bending on their narrow stems, little particolored strings of bells that tinkled audibly when the wind moved through them. And the wind was always moving through them, for though the day was still in the human lands where he had left his horse, here the air was constantly moving, picking up Laurent’s hair and brushing it against his cheeks, making him grateful for the green cloak he had thrown on that morning over his jacket in deference to the cool of early spring.

In the center, the fort was falling into ruins - the roof half-caved in, and what had once been doors and portcullises torn away by great green vines that clambered up the walls. Through one of these new openings, a confusion of cultivated plants spilled out - great spears of early blooming irises and budding lilies fighting for territory among the fae invaders. Laurent was sure that the strange new plants he walked among must bear a perfume as enchanting and unnatural as their appearance, but he couldn’t smell it. At the vanguard of the garden’s encroachment, a rosebush had sprouted, huge and untamed, and its air was all he could breathe. It turned out that even in this strange new world, nothing could smell like a rose. Laurent reached out and pulled one newly opened blossom to him, breathing its familiar air and taking comfort that something mortal could overpower what was theirs. He felt an impulse to keep it with him, as a talisman, and before he continued forward, he pulled it from the branch.

“Why did you do that?” asked a male voice, “You owe me tribute now for both the trespass and the rose.”

Laurent turned.

He had never seen one of the fae before, but while the man coming from the green hill towards him did not match the descriptions Laurent had read in books, he could not be mistaken for anything else. He did not have horns or tusks or wings to mark him as inhuman, but no human being had dark curls that lustrous or eyes that bright. No mortal man stood that tall and yet was everywhere in proportion; no man carried that many muscles with the sleek grace of a panther; no man with a body that size tripped lightly down a hillside. He had never seen a man with a wry, amused smile on such a handsome face, or warm olive skin so luminous with youthful glow. Laurent was reckoned an incredible beauty among his people, ethereal and untouchable, yet the man coming towards him now put him to shame. The fae were dangerous, it was said, because a glance from them could ensnare you even if you were prepared for it, even if you knew what to expect. Laurent was in no danger, but looking now at the man coming towards him, he understood how even the wary could be caught.

“I do as I like,” Laurent said evenly

The fae gave a small smile. “Not here,” he said.

“Yes, here,” Laurent said, still clutching his rose, “My father was the King here. Our ancestors built that fort, his people planted these roses. Are these lands and this flower not more mine than they are yours?”

“I make no claim to them,” the man said easily, “But I’ve been tasked with collecting a price from all who venture here, and that is what I will do, Prince or no.”

“Perhaps I should make my meaning plainer,” Laurent said, stepping closer. “I will come and go wherever I like, and ask no leave of you.”

The fae stepped closer too. It was a more impressive gesture coming from him, though his satisfied smile did not change. This close, Laurent was forced to look up.

“Then I will ask no leave of you,” said the fae, looking Laurent over, “When I take what is owed to me.”

Laurent gazed at him coolly. “I’ve heard that you do that. Mortals stumble across this place, and return with their clothing torn, their virtue stolen.”

“When your people come here, knowing what awaits them, they are usually looking for the excuse to give what I take from them.”

Laurent could see how that might sometimes be the case, but how arrogant - how like one of them - to assume that he knew what mortals wanted, that he had a right to whatever he took from them.

“In the beginning, people used to come to fight you, not fuck you,” Laurent said, and was amused to see the fae man flinch at the word, shy as an Akielon.

“Some still do,” he said, “But rarely.”

“What is more potent, I wonder? Your sword? Or your  _ sword?” _

“I have no objection to giving you a demonstration with either.” His smirk became more pronounced.

“I object to being run through.” He left it purposefully vague which blade he was referring to, but instead of boasting, the other’s face became more serious.

“I have not set out to kill any of your people,” he said, “But these are challenges, not sparring, and we do not wield practice blades.”

“None have managed to run you through.”

“Not yet.” There was a pause. “Did you come here just to steal a rose and talk in circles?”

Laurent drew his shoulders back. “I came here to look over my domains,” he said haughtily, “The Good Folk have no proper claim, but as you are here and will not leave, you might as well show me around.”

Laurent took a few steps away, waiting to see what the reaction would be.

“Well?” said Laurent, turning around and raising an eyebrow, “What are you waiting for? Attend me.”

Laurent waited for the reaction, for the tells that would give him the measure of the being he faced here who was to be his enemy. For a moment, the fae warrior stared at him in disbelief. Then he did the last thing that Laurent had expected. He threw back his head and laughed.

"This way, your highness," and making an ironic bow, easy smile on his handsome face, he led Laurent on.

 

The mortal was perhaps the most beautiful man Damen had seen outside of Faerie, but his eyes were cold. Damen took him around the fort, a slow journey that consisted of many stops and digressions, and by the time they'd reached halfway around, he still did not know what Prince Laurent wanted here. His behavior had consisted mainly in complaining about the changes made to the fort and ordering Damen about in the most high-handed manner.

At one point his protests had become so obnoxious that Damen grinned and asked, “Do you intend to send the Faerie Queen a letter of complaint with an itemized list of grievances?”

Laurent had looked up sharply. “Is it the Queen who’s laid claim to this place, then?”

Damen could only shrug. “I was placed here, and I am hers,” he'd said, “Beyond that, I know not.”

“But now I know something of you.” Laurent had looked him over. “If you are to be my guide, I must have something to call you.”

Damen had hesitated. The true fae hid their true names with odd sobriquets - Damen personally knew of a Merryweather and a Peaseblossom and a Robin Goodfellow - but while he saw no need to do so himself, the thought of identifying himself to this spoiled princeling as Prince Damianos, captive and bound, filled him with an odd sense of shame.

“You can call me Damen," he'd said at last, conceding to the discomfort of allowing the intimacy of his small name to someone who had not earned it as the least troubling of his options. Laurent had nodded, and Damen was left with the feeling that he'd lost more in the exchange than he understood.

Beyond that, Laurent asked questions, which combined with his interest in the Queen owning Marlas led Damen to suspect that his real purpose was to press for information - but his questions had so little connection to each other that Damen couldn’t see a single point to which they tended. He asked about the nature of the plants, or the lay of the land. Another time, he had questioned Damen closely about the fate of a challenger he’d mentioned off-handedly in relation to what they’d been discussing, but seemed uninterested in the fight itself or the reasons for it. It was frustrating.

They had reached the far side of the fort, where the walls looked over a wide expanse of fields. Battles had been fought here in the old days: when the Artesian empire had fallen apart, and again more recently, when Vere had claimed the land from Akielos and turned Delpha into Delfeur.

“There are said to be the stones of Artesian ruins down there,” said Laurent, looking down the slope with a keen interest that Damen thought was unfeigned. Perhaps the Prince was interested in history.

“We shouldn’t go there,” Damen said. He grabbed Laurent’s arm before he could start moving towards it. “It is not a place for humans to go.

Laurent stepped back and carefully pulled his arm free.

“Your people have always been there, haven’t you? I remember stories from when I was a boy, that on fair nights there would be strange lights and music coming from the Artesian ruins, and that if you were unlucky enough to tread there at the wrong time, you might encounter goblin men trying to sell you things that would cost more than you know.”

“They like abandoned places,” Damen said.

“And if you can’t find an abandoned place, you make one. A bustling fort with surrounding towns and villages, and then one night everyone goes to sleep, even the night watchmen standing at their posts, and when they wake at dawn they are all lying in a field several miles away, their homes and possessions as lost to them as if devoured by fire or swept away by flood.”

Damen shifted uncomfortably. Laurent’s anger irritated him only because it was misdirected (he’d had nothing to do with the misfortunes of Vere), but he could not deny that it was justified, and he disliked the reminder that he was serving on behalf of those who had committed the wrong. “I am told that no one was hurt.”

“No, the removal of everyone from their land and their livelihood was completely bloodless. People died afterwards, of course, but what does that matter. If you did not directly kill them, then it cannot be your fault, whether or not it happens as a result of what you’ve done.”

Damen was silent.

“Oh, I forgot,” Laurent said, not very believably, “You did directly kill some of them, didn’t you?”

“I will not apologize for slaying men who were fighting to kill me,” Damen said, “That does not mean that I agree with everything the one who ordered me here has done.

Laurent glared at him immovably. Damen decided that this conversation was over.

“There’s what used to be an orchard around this way,” he said, turning away before the Prince could respond. “Don’t touch any fruit you don’t recognize.”

Laurent did not dignify that with an answer, but after a time, Damen heard him following.

 

Eventually, they came upon the green hill that had been there since before Marlas was taken - uncanny then, avoided by animals and birds and beset by rumors of strange creatures living in it; and eerily mundane now, having remained unchanged. The slope was covered in simple grass, the green of early spring, without any strange blooms from the Other Land, and the grass continued down into a wide flat area before the hill.

“This is where I’d stage a fight,” Laurent said, looking at the flat space with no plants in it that were not safe to crush.

“This is where they happen, when I am challenged,” Damen admitted.

“Many battles?”

“Some.”

“I used to think that there was some monster here, to face all our best men and remain undefeated.” Laurent tilted his head to look at him, something close to admiration in his gaze.

“Not quite undefeated,” Damen said, “One man disarmed me.”

Laurent straightened sharply, all pretense at admiration gone. “What?” It was the first time in their conversation that he seemed surprised, shaken out of the iron-clad assurance with which he’d moved through the stolen grounds, and Damen couldn’t help a little thrill of victory at managing to break through his complacency.

“When was this?”

“Six years ago,” said Damen with confidence. Time blurred together here, but that had only made Damen more careful about marking his days, keeping track in his mind. It had been spring then too, the flowers in a riot and the early roses blooming, just as now.

“What happened?”

“He disarmed me,” Damen repeated, but Laurent at him as though that explained nothing. “I was only nineteen, but it had already been nearly two years since I had last been disarmed - long even since someone had come close. But he was the best fighter I’d ever faced, and he made me struggle for every inch. For a time we seemed evenly matched, but then he found his strength and struck the sword from my hand.”

“But what happened to him?” Laurent asked, and there was nothing vulnerable in him, but Damen could see the importance he placed on every word, the tension that revealed that this was finally what he’d come there for.

“I knocked his helm from him in the battle,” Damen said, eyes narrowed, “He was closer to me in size, but his coloring and features were not unlike your own.”

Laurent drew in a breath.

“He had the Veretian starburst emblazoned on his breastplate, but I thought that meant that he was in the Prince’s Guard,” Damen said, “He was not in the Guard, was he?”

“No, he was not of the Prince’s Guard.”

“If you are here now seeking him, that must mean he never made it home,” Damen said gently, “I am sorry for it. He was the best man I ever faced. He fought with honor.”

“But what _happened_ to him?” Laurent repeated, still contained and controlled, but something roiling underneath the calm, a tight desperation he was reining in.

“Prince Auguste,” Damen said, because that is who it must have been, “Defeated me in fair combat. He won. So I opened the Door.”

“Door?” Laurent’s brow wrinkled. “What door?”

“The Door in the hill,” Damen said, pointing, “The one that leads into Faerie itself. That is the prize for winning the challenge - to get through the door.”

Laurent walked away from him, pacing like a leopard. “And you don’t know,” he said, “What happened to him once he went through it?”

“He did not come back this way, that is all I can tell you.”

Laurent scowled. “I have wasted my time here. The day is gone, and I am barely one step closer to finding or avenging my brother, or even learning what became of him.”

Damen was angry now. Prince Laurent was not blaming him, exactly, but the hint of accusation in his words stung, as did that Laurent was no longer looking at him. The information gained, he had been dismissed from Laurent’s mind as unimportant.

“I did not ask you,” said Damen, “To spend all afternoon playing games, having me escort you from one field to the next while you waited for me to stumble upon the topic accidentally instead of asking me yourself.”

“Do you think I have grown up so close to the Fair Country without ever having been warned about the dangers of asking your kind for what you want? But since you invite it, I’ll make the attempt now.” Laurent stepped closer. “Will you open the door for me, and send me after him?”

“I can’t.”

“Of course. So much for asking directly.”

“I mean I physically can’t. The magic will not work for me unless you earn it.”

“But if I earned it, then you could?”

“Vere cannot afford to lose both of its princes.”

“My country is my own affair,” Laurent said sharply, “If I earned it, you could let me through?”

“If you earned it, I would have to.”

Laurent smiled. “Very well. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

It was Damen’s turn to grin. “Going to challenge me?” he asked, looking Laurent up and down. The tips of Laurent’s ears pinked.

Laurent looked him up and down as well. “Not yet.” His tone was considering. “Until tomorrow, then.”

He started to walk away, as if they were finished here.

“But I haven’t claimed my prize.”

* * *

Laurent froze. He had not forgotten, exactly, the price for coming here, but in the teasing lightness of Damen showing him around and offering his name, and the recent revelations about Auguste, it had slipped from his mind. He had prepared for this, Laurent reminded himself, had coming here knowing exactly what was going to happen and decided that, for his brother, he was willing to go that far. But that was before. Before walking with Damen, and talking to him, before finding himself unable to help liking his smile, even knowing what he was and the danger he represented. Somehow that made it worse that what he had imagined.

Damen crossed to where he was standing and moved around to come in front of him. Large hands fell on his shoulders and slid down to the clasp of his cloak. Laurent stiffened as they worked it open and pulled it and the fabric away. He waited for the hands to continue roving, down his chest and up the laces on his back, groping the lines of his body and taking what they wanted without recourse to what Laurent felt. Instead, he felt a lightness as Damen stepped away.

“One for the trespass,” he said, holding the green cloak up in one hand, like a merchant displaying the quality of the fabric, “And one for the rose,” he continued, lifting his other hand where the gold clasp lay shining against his palm. “A fair price, your highness.”

For a moment, Laurent blinked, unable to fathom what had just happened. Then Laurent nodded in acknowledgement, bowed his leave with the grace of princes, and turned away in silence.

Wrongfooted, he returned to where he had left his horse. On the ride back, he tried not to think about it, tried to turn his mind instead to next steps - on what to do now that he knew where Auguste had been, if not where he was, and how best to follow after him. But the sensations - the weight of the hands dropping onto his shoulders, the sudden lightness of the cloak being lifted away - kept returning to him, making him feel less than fully dressed. He still had his jacket, and yet he could not entirely keep from shivering.

At the keep, he managed to sidestep Guion’s obsequiousness and avoid encountering any of his lackey-sons long enough to summon Jord and Orlant down to the training grounds.

“I need to know how to fight a man both bigger and faster than I am.”

Jord and Orlant exchanged a look.

“Nimble?” Jord asked. Laurent thought of Damen’s steady feet on the uneven terrain of fallow fields and rocky hillsides, the speed with which he had relieved him of the clasp at his throat.

“Very.” He said dryly.

“You fight him dirty, your highness,” said Orlant, “But we’ve taught you all the tricks we know.”

“There are mercenaries who might know more,” Jord allowed, “Men used to fighting without honor.”

Laurent thought. “There are mercenaries among my uncle’s troops.”

Orlant scoffed. “Best he can hope to get, the fucking - I mean, the Regent, sire.”

“Mercenaries can be bought, and then bought again for a better price. Find out what my uncle is paying them.”

* * *

Laurent made time to go back to Marlas nearly every day. In the mornings, he worked on his skills with Jord and Orlant and a recruit they’d picked up called Lazar - a foul-mouthed and arrogant roustabout in the service of his Uncle, who nevertheless endeared himself to Laurent through his habit of picking fights with Guion’s unbearable youngest son Aimeric, who was too eager to prove himself a man to carry tales to his father. In the evenings, at and after dinner, he played a double-game. A pretense at playing at politics that was meant to be understood as a mask for his real purpose of winning Guion over from his Uncle’s side, which he also made enough of a pretense of to be reasonably believable. At night, he scoured the meager library and poured through any books about the fae that he could find. In the afternoons, he went riding whenever the weather allowed - and he ensured that no one at the keep knew that his rides always took him to Marlas.

At Marlas, Laurent spent his time walking around with Damen and slowly coaxing information out of him. On the second day, they toured the inside of the fort, stepping over the encroachments of vegetation on the paths and between the cracks of the flagstones. Inside, the detritus of human existence had been mostly cleared away, with only the loveliest of the fort’s treasures reserved and rearranged to their new masters’ inscrutable designs. In the great hall, the long tables were still there, but the chairs had been replaced by an odd assortment of thrones and logs and giant toadstools. One great chair appeared to be carved out of ice that did not melt, another seemed to be a floating cloud.

“At least this place still seems to be in use,” Laurent had said, after moving through scores of unoccupied rooms, eerie with the echoes of their footsteps.

“On occasion,” Damen had said. He wore a short cloak in the Akielon style over his fae clothes that day, but it was fastened with Laurent’s clasp, and not a pin. “They hold feasts here on some of the festival days, and run in and out onto the hills. They might use it more once the vines have finished tearing down the roofs; they don’t like to be confined away from the open sky.”

“Then why go to the trouble of taking an enclosed fort in the first place?” Laurent had asked.

“It was not my doing,” said Damen, “And the Faerie Queene does not explain her whims to me.”

“And in the seven years you’ve been here, you have never made a guess. Does your brain work, or are you only good at killing things?”

“The fae dislike living in close proximity to mortals,” Damen suggested, “Perhaps the creatures living in the ruins and in the hill complained.”

“Complaints about the neighbors,” Laurent repeated.

Damen had shrugged, as if to say again that it was not his doing.

 

At the western side of the fort there was a steep slope downwards towards the horizon, and on another occasion Damen had stopped there in their rambling, gazing down with such intensity that Laurent had peered after him until he realized that the line of darker blue in the distance was not the sky, but the sea.

“Can you hear the waves?” he had asked, remembering that the fae were said to have sharper senses.

“No,” he had said, “But sometimes I can see them better, if the day is clear.”

He stood there gazing hunger Laurent did not understand until Laurent moved them on.

 

Usually, Laurent found a way to turn whatever conversation to the topic of Damen’s fights. In the beginning, he would flutter his eyelashes and make a fuss about how impressed he was with men who were good fighters, but Damen would always give him a sidelong look and say something sardonic to let Laurent know he was on to him, and lately Laurent just asked outright. It was not difficult to get Damen talking about challenges and bouts, or even to coax him into demonstrating a move. It was a very rough way to get an idea of a man’s fighting style. Still, the more he saw, even in this limited fashion, the more he pushed himself in his training sessions with Lazar.

At the end of each meeting, Damen would take something from him: a knife, a sword belt, a small pouch of coins. As on the first day, he asked no leave and gave no warning for what he took, and it was always a surprise to Laurent what Damen’s hands would lift away from him. As yet, Damen had not ravished him, though he knew that was the fate of most who trespassed in Damen’s domain, and Damen’s eyes made no secret of the fact that Damen wanted him. At night, he would lie in his room in Fortaine and wonder about it, imagine it. It was the anticipation of it, Laurent thought, the certainty that it would happen eventually, despite whatever it was that seemed to be holding Damen back. Each day he expected to be violated and each day it did not occur; small wonder he could think of nothing else.

Soon the thoughts crept from his bed to invade the rest of his day, and he found himself picturing it in the bath when he washed the sweat and dirt of his bout with Lazar off of his body. He wondered if it wouldn’t be easier if Damen would just get it over with.

 

Laurent fed his horse a leftover apple from his lunch before leading her out of the stables and starting the ride towards Marlas. It was a beautiful sunny day, spring settling into its stride now, weeks after his first visit here. He would have to return to court for his birthday soon.

Laurent had grown used to the abandoned farmland around Marlas being deserted, but as he crested ridge, he saw a young woman stepping over the border. She was a peasant from the look of her, pretty in the common way, with freckles and a nose that was slightly too broad. Her clothes were neat and tidy, but her red-brown hair was in disarray, let loose to stream behind her with bits of dry grass and thistledown clinging to it, her kerchief clutched in her hand. She was breathing just a little too rapidly for the exertion of her slow walk. Her face was flushed, and she was smiling.

At least, until she saw Laurent. Then the color drained from her face and her eyes went wide with fear. Laurent saw in her terror the future she was imagining for herself - vilification and calumny, her loved ones turning against her, cries of “whore” and “bastard bearer,” ostracization and violence, being cast from her home and her family, a life devoid of hope. Or, conversely, a price for Laurent’s silence - perhaps a price not dissimilar from what she had been doing, but made awful because it would be a price, a terrible thing to endure.

But then she glanced back over her shoulder once, and turned to him a hesitant, rueful smile. _She thinks we are here for the same thing,_ Laurent thought, and, amused by the idea, gave her a conspiratorial nod to reassure her. Her easy smile returned, and she walked up to him with more confidence.

“Is this your first time here, my lord?” she asked, and Laurent, now further amused that she did not know who he was, shook his head truthfully.

“Nor mine,” she admitted, “I know it’s foolish, to go more than once, but after experiencing him, how can you not come again?”

“But perhaps the next person you meet on the way will not be so understanding.”

“I know, I know,” she said, “It’s a risk every time.”

She glanced back nervously, and Laurent knew she was thinking about what could have been if he had been inclined to make trouble for her.

“Is he truly your only prospect?”

“My parents have a tradesman two towns over who they’d like me to meet,” she admitted reluctantly, “I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Perhaps you will like him,” Laurent said.

“Perhaps,” she echoed.

“Perhaps you will like him better if you are not comparing him to …” He let the sentence hang.

“Yes.” Her shoulders straightened. “You are right. Thank you, my lord. This will be the last time.”

She curtsied to him, low enough for the rank she guessed he had but not nearly enough for who he was, and he nodded at her.

“Stay safe,” he wished her, “And fix up your hair, before you return home.”

She put her hand up to it and grimaced ruefully, then curtsied to him once again and continued on her way. Shaking his head, Laurent made his own way to the border and stepped over.

“Is there an extra price for bringing my horse?” he called out, “I met one of your - other guests - coming in, and I don’t want it known that there’s a fine coarser standing unattended at the border.”

“The price is only for thinking creatures,” Damen called back, coming into Laurent’s view around the side of the fort, “Bring it in.”

“Her,” Laurent corrected, “And if the price is for creatures that think, then I doubt you are qualified to collect it.”

He led his mare carefully through a path that wound between the grasses, keeping her away from the faerie plants until they’d reached the grassy area by what he thought of as Damen’s hill, where she would be in no danger of trodding on or nibbling at anything that was not earthly.

He looked Damen over. He looked a bit more pleased with himself than usual, a certain seeming-satisfied look about his face, but he showed none of the signs of exertion that had been present in the woman leaving him. The glamour of course, affected him as it always did, warmth and attraction running through him, the desire to make Damen happy, to gaze into that face and watch it smile. He quashed it. He was good at quashing it by now - he'd had much practice. The only thing that bothered him was the dimple. Damen dimpled when he smiled, but only on the one side, just on one cheek. It was as appealing as the rest of him, but it was unsymmetrical - imperfect. The fae were supposed to be perfect in form, particularly under glamour. When he was wearing it, as he was just now, smiling at Laurent's approach, he looked discomfortably human.

“Does that happen often?” he asked, inclining his head back in the direction the woman had gone.

“Now and then.”

“Ought I to be surprised that I have not encountered another visitor before?”

“No.” Damen grinned. “They do not come that often.”

“Ah,” Laurent said, “Do you lack proficiency?”

At first, Damen did not seem to take his meaning, then Laurent watched his face turn smug and offended all at once. “That has never been a problem.”

“No man is blessed with all talents together,” Laurent said, with false sympathy, “Some can couple adequately, others are good at killing things. There is no shame in it.”

Damen stepped uncomfortably close to him. “The day you come here for that purpose,” he said, eyes burning with intent, “I will show you coupling that is far more than adequate.”

“You are certain that such a day will come?”

“Yes.”

“You are certain that it has not come already?” Laurent gazed at him boldly, eyes a challenge.

Damen did not grab him roughly, as Laurent had been expecting. Instead he reached out with a gentleness that seemed incongruous with his strength and size, taking a strand of Laurent’s hair and brushing it back behind his ear. He let his hand trail down the back of Laurent’s head, mapping the curve of his skull, so lightly he could only feel it from the movement of his hair. When the soft pad of his fingers brushed the skin of his neck above his collar, a shiver went down his back that was not at all unpleasant. Despite himself, Laurent flinched.

Damen smirked as if he had just proved something, and stepped back.

“You can leave your horse here, if you like,” he said, “I will know if someone crosses the border.”

Damen started moving towards the place that overlooked the sea, as he always did when Laurent did not choose their direction first.

“Is this what you do all day, when there are no maidens for you to tumble?” Laurent asked, “Stand there like a mindless statue and stare at the waves?”

“When there are no people here, I am not here,” said Damen, “Mostly, I am in the Other Place.”

Laurent was surprised. Damen looked at him.

“What, did you think I just sat in one of these fields all day, waiting for a mortal to wander by? What did you think I did when it rained? Or snowed?”

“I imagined you had the wit to go into the fort, but perhaps I overestimated you.”

“The fort with the roof half-caved in?”

“Forgive me for believing the other half big enough to hold you. I ought to have known your massive bulk could not be restrained by human dwellings.”

Damen rolled his eyes at him.

“How is it you are always here to meet me when I come, if this is not where you live?” Laurent asked.

“I can … feel it,” Damen said, “I don’t know how to explain, it’s like - a tug, in my chest, and I know that someone has crossed the border. And whatever I am doing, I stop being there and start being - here.”

“So you cannot come here on your own then?”

“I can. Sometimes I do, but that’s different. It’s a choice. The other times, it just happens.”

“So you cannot refuse to appear, when someone crosses the border.”

Damen shook his head. “No more can I fail to extract a price from those who come, or perhaps you would retain more of your personal belongings.”

“You can’t open the door into the Other Realm without being defeated in combat, you cannot refuse to come when called, you can’t choose not to extract a price.” Laurent shook his head. “What good are you?”

“I told you I was only a vassal of the  Queene.” Damen looked out in the direction of the water, the briefest line of darker blue barely visible on the horizon. “She owns me as much as she owns this place.”

Laurent sat down on the grass where he had been standing, one knee bent up with his hands clasped around it, the other leg extended in the direction of Damen’s stare. Damen glanced down, and then sat beside him.

“Tell me what lies beyond the Door,” Laurent said, and Damen’s already grim expression grew more stern.

“I know you don’t like to speak of it,” he continued. Unlike with swordfighting, it was difficult to get Damen to talk about Faerie, and he would only respond to direct questions. “But I will need to know, if I am to get back my brother.”

“I know you have been trying to get me to tell you how I fight, but I do not think you would win between us.” He said it with the same steady self-assurance he’d used to proclaim that Laurent would eventually lay with him of his own desire, the certainty of a man who knows his abilities and what he can do. It was an attitude Auguste had shown, and that Laurent had never mastered. He could be insecure, or he could seem arrogant. He chose arrogant.

“I know that this is not the only door,” Laurent countered, “You underestimate me if you think I will not find my own way through.”

Turned towards each other, their faces were very close. Damen’s gaze was usually an easy thing, like his smile, like his greetings, like the way he moved. But even in those easy glances, he observed more than one would think to look at him, and at times he had a piercing gaze, fierce and unpretentious, as if he were looking right through all of Laurent’s walls and masks, as if Laurent’s hard-won defenses were transparent and beneath him. He looked at Laurent like that now, and Laurent felt like his inner self was being picked through and examined. There were sides to Laurent that Damen had never seen. Too conscious of what came of those who offended the fae, Laurent had always kept the vicious parts of him contained - never let Damen see the ruthlessness and the cruelty, the capacity to manipulate and use, the parts of him that he had learned from his uncle. Damen had no reason to take him seriously, or to guess what he was capable of.

Damen leaned back, and Laurent prepared to hear the assessment of himself that he got from the Council and his court: young, spoiled, weak, lazy, and too vain to know it; too foolish to find a fairy mound; too immature to be King.

But Damen said, “You would,” in that final, confident way of his, and Laurent felt something unexpected twist inside him.

Beside him, Damen sighed, resigned. “Ask me what you want to know, and I’ll do my best to tell you.”

 

As the afternoon sun turned golden and lengthened the shadows, Laurent went back for his horse, already thinking of what further questions he could ask the next day. Damen had answered him directly, without evasion, but Laurent could not assume that everything he would need to know would be something he would know to ask, and he must plan carefully the line his questioning would take.

“I still need my price for today,” Damen said.

“What am I losing this time?” he asked, and endured Damen’s evaluation feeling like a horse at market, examined from shoes to withers, in anticipation of a fine ride.

“You’ve never taken one of my jackets,” Laurent commented, as Damen actually circled around him. He thought this was the part of their leave-taking Damen enjoyed most, making Laurent uncomfortable in anticipation of what would be removed from him, drawing it out.

“I don’t think it would fit,” said Damen wryly. Each time he came to Marlas, Laurent found Damen wearing one of his possession. Today, Damen had one of Laurant’s daggers hanging from his belt.

Damen stopped behind him, where he would have to stand if he was to unlace the jacket. But when he lifted up his hands, he placed them in Laurent’s hair, on the ribbon he had used to tie it up, and pulled it free. Laurent had noticed Damen’s interest in his hair. He thought about Damen making that choice for the purpose of this moment, for watching the blond tresses come undone and fall loosely about his shoulders, for feeling their silky strands against his fingers.

“My prize,” he said, holding it up. Damen’s curls, though not closely-cropped, were too short to be tied back. Laurent wondered if he would wear the ribbon tied about his arm, as a knight would wear his lover’s favor.

Back in Fortaine, he imagined the scandal that would have occurred if Damen had taken his jacket instead; if the Prince had returned from his ride in his shirtsleeves, the whispers and rumors that would have resulted. He imagined how, on his ride back, the wind would have cut through the thin linen as if it were not there at all, and how the air would have felt against his skin. He imagined that the impersonal servant unlacing his jacket behind him were Damen instead, could almost feel his shadow looming over Laurent’s shoulder, his bulk a palpable presence at his back. He imagined hands larger and less practiced pulling each lacing free with a little tug, all that power and strength bent to this service, to Laurent coming undone.


	3. Chapter 2

_Laurent’s donned his brother’s mail_  
_From shoulder to the knee_  
_And he has gone to Marlas Hall_  
_As fast as go can he_

The next time that Laurent encountered another person in Damen’s territory their presence was heralded by a clash of swords. The harsh clangs of metal against metal rang clear from the other side of the border, and knowing how rare Damen’s challenges were now that he’d been at Marlas for so long, Laurent hurried to get close enough before he lost what would likely be his only chance at seeing Damen fight.

He heard Damen’s voice cry, “Hold,” from the direction of the hill, and when Laurent rounded the corner of the fort, he saw two warriors standing at the ready. Damen was clad in silver mail, the kind the fae used that was woven in mesh as fine as starlight, and yet stronger than the cold iron they could not bear to touch. In his hand, he held a straight sword of the same strange metal that caught the light of the sun so that it almost seemed to glow. With his now familiar face hidden by the helm, Laurent could almost believe him a hero from a tale, stepped that moment out of a story.

His opponent was Akielon, tall and broad, though still smaller than Damen, sun-bronzed where the skin showed on his arms and legs. He wore the piecemeal and leather armor that Akielons favored that would allow for hours of fighting in their oppressive climate, and the high-strapped sandals that, in their arrogance, they insisted on wearing into battle as if to proclaim for all the world that their warriors were too masculine, too strong, to be felled by such a thing as a loose stone rolling between their foot and the leather sole. It was a look that to Laurent’s people had long meant “danger,” meant “enemy.” His sword was steel, as was the breastplate strapped to his chest and the helm that hid his face.

At Damen’s first sight of Laurent coming around the wall, he turned and said something to the Akielon that Laurent could not hear, and both raised up their swords to resume the combat. It was the Akielon who charged first, one of their direct attacks that bore their full weight upon their opponent, forcing them to put their whole strength behind the parry. Damen took a half step to the side, managing to take the full brunt of the assault on his outstretched arms and use it to redirect the Akielon’s motion, forcing him off balance. It was his turn to attack then, but the Akielon was quick too, blocking and parrying while dancing his footwork back in a way that gave ground, but helped absorb the force that the larger man was putting behind his blows. It was a close thing, but the Akielon managed to twist free, coming at Damen from a new direction with a barrage of blows that seemed desperate in its ferocity. Damen weathered them as if they poised no problem, absorbing direct hits on his blade with both arms, darting around clever glancing blows, keeping his guard pre-emptively wherever his opponent directed his strikes as if he knew ahead of time from which direction the attack would come. When the Akielon tired enough for Damen to turn the exchange, he came at him from all directions, darting about so that his opponent was ever having to shift his guard to meet the direction of Damen’s new blow. Damen moved like quicksilver, but with the strength of a bull behind it, shifting from stances and techniques with a power and artistry that Laurent had not seen since his brother had disappeared behind the border. He was supposed to be using this opportunity to analyze Damen’s technique, searching for flaws and predictability that he could use to his own advantage, but while part of his disciplined mind never left that task, another kept getting distracted by the beauty of it all, the balletic nature of the two fighters, both agile and strong.

It was like a tourney fight - both in the display, and Laurent realized, in a certain falseness that Laurent noticed a moment before he realized what was causing it. Damen was one of the most impressive things he had ever seen with a sword, keeping mostly to the same Akielon style of his opponent but at times incorporating a block and parry that Laurent knew to be Veretian, even occasionally slipping in a technique that he recognized from the Imperial fighters of Vask. But while his opponent was of no mean skill and clearly throwing everything he had into the battle, Laurent was struck with the feeling that Damen was holding back. There were moments when, in his eagerness, the Akielon struck a blow too wide or left a side open, but Damen did not take advantage of these opportunities - and the more he saw them fight, the more he saw Damen move, the more certain he became that it was because he was intentionally avoiding hurting the other man.

Still, even with that handicap, the fight was barely a contest. Despite his size and the power of his blows, Damen was tiring more slowly than his smaller opponent. Eventually he was able to force the other into a position where their swords caught against each other, then a twisting move to his wrists that Laurent knew and had practiced sent the other’s blade spinning into the grass.

“Again!” he said, gesturing to his dropped sword, but Damen was shaking his head.

“It is over, old friend.”

The other man tore off his helm with a curse and threw it in the direction his sword had fallen.

“Must you always fight so hard?”

“I am bound to try to the best of my ability,” said Damen, as he slid his sword back into its sheath. The armor he was wearing dissolved into mist, rising into the spring air like morning fog.

His opponent shook his head and turned away from Damen’s smile. His eyes passed over Laurent without surprise - he had known someone was there - but something caught his attention and they went back, eyeing Laurent from boot to collar.

He bowed. “Your highness,” he said, then nudged Damen’s arm and muttered, “You could have warned me that ‘it’s only Laurent’ was the Prince of Vere,” in a quick, low Akielon that he did not seem to intend Laurent to understand.

“This is Nikandros, Kyros of Delpha,” said Damen quickly, so Laurent would know how to receive the bow.

“Half of Delfeur,” Laurent said, inclining his head in acknowledgement.

Laurent had only ever seen Damen in the clothing of the fae - not the “made of flower petals and moonbeams” stuff that some of the more ethereal creatures were said to wear, but the layered colors and fabrics of some of the more human-looking illustrations Laurent had seen in books. He wore soft, flexible boots of a hide Laurent did not recognize, and leggings that clung to his calves and thighs more tightly than any Veretian pants. Today he had on over them a rich green tunic, with a looser skirt than the Patran style but still fitted across his chest, embroidered around the edges with a silver twisting of vines and leaves - and under that, a light shirt in a deep blue with sleeves that extended beyond where the tunic ended at his shoulders and fell to his wrists, loose enough to shift with him when he moved. Laurent had seen pictures of fairy courtiers dressed in such garments - and he had only ever seen Damen in a fairy-claimed space - and he claimed to wield at least some fae power.

But looking at the two men now, standing side-by-side, Laurent wondered how he could have thought anything so foolish. The untraceable strangeness in Damen’s speech that Laurent had assumed marked the tones of the fae was obviously a shadow of the Kyros’s thicker Akielon accent, which Damen was fluent enough to have almost lost; their dark hair and olive skin was of a type; Damen spoke direct as an Akielon without evading like the fae; he said “they” when he spoke of them; he had called Nikandros “old friend;” he had only one dimple. He had asked Laurent to call him "Damen."

“Prince Damianos of Akielos,” Laurent said, turning to Damen and inclining his head in greeting.

“My brother of Vere,” Damen returned, looking pleased, “Well met.”

“Did you have a purpose, in keeping your identity a secret?”

“I was not trying to hide,” Damen said, shrugging, “I thought you would have guessed.”

He should have guessed.  Damen was not being subtle, and there had been many clues.  It was just … the way Damen looked in the sunlight, the way that seeing him always affected him. Laurent had been so certain that he was under a glamour.

Damen gestured to his friend. “Nikandros was the first Akielon to challenge me, before anyone knew where I was, when they were only seeking news. He brought the word back to my father, who kept it quiet to prevent our people from storming through Vere to get here, but he would send his warriors to try me, and now my brother does. But none have returned so frequently as Nikandros has.”

“And I will defeat you next time.”

“Pallas came closer.”

“Then I will send him back to try again, but eventually one of us will win.”

“Perhaps so. But then, what is your plan for afterwards? Will you glare at the Faerie Queene with your disapproving eyebrows until she agrees to give me up?”

“Perhaps she is not so stubborn as you,” Nikandros said, “You know I would trade anything for your return.”

Damen’s face fell. “Don’t.”

“There is nothing you can say. You cannot expect your country to trade less for you than you would give for it. You cannot expect that of me.”

Damen grinned crookedly. “Well,” he said, “You will have to get past me first.”

“Ought I leave you two alone?” Laurent interrupted, “Or do you enjoy being watched.”

Nikandros frowned, but Damen waved off Laurent’s archness. “We always catch up after the fight, but you can stay if you like.”

So Laurent sat in the grass and listened as they exchanged the news of Akielos, seemingly unconcerned about the prince of what was, until recently, an enemy nation overhearing their talk. The spring in Ios had proved unusually hot, but they were hoping for a lighter summer; King Kastor’s son was learning to walk; a drought in Mellos had provoked unrest, but been settled when royal stores of grain had been opened to supply what the parched fields would not; the younger brother of a friend who had once, Laurent gathered, followed Damen like a lisping puppy was now a young man and winning tournaments. They spoke much of Delpha and how Nikandros governed it, and Laurent made note of and filed away anything that might prove relevant to border issues.

When the sun had lowered enough to start getting in their eyes, Nikandros raised his hand to shield them and looked at the sky.

“I must be getting back,” he said, “The ride to Sanpelier is long.”

Laurent stood up too, walking with them to the border. At the edge of it, the two Akielons made an odd embrace, clasping each other’s shoulders and foreheads pressed together, as they said their goodbyes in a more formal Akielon than they had used to talk. They did not look like lovers, but that made the display of raw emotion all the more uncomfortable for Laurent to witness, so he stared directly at it as if daring them to ask him to look away.

Nikandros handed Damen a golden pin, and when he stepped over the border Laurent tossed down a glove and followed. When he judged them to be out of Damen’s earshot, Laurent spoke

 

“You are back?” Damen asked, when he walked back into Marlas.

“I had business with Nikandros.”

“Border issues?”

“I have invited the Kyros of Delpha to attend me for two weeks at my birthday celebration in Acquitart.” He had decided to host it there, with a small number of prized courtiers who would feel all the more important for their inclusion, rather than return to the capital and waste so much time before he could get back to finish his business in Marlas.

“Good diplomacy.”

Laurent shrugged.

Damen had been lying in the grass with his hands behind his head when Laurent had returned, and when Laurent seemed disinclined to elaborate, he let his shoulders drop back down to the ground. Laurent sat down beside him, legs crossed.

“There is another way through the door besides defeating you in combat.”

Damen raised up on one elbow and looked at him in surprise.

“They say the Good People cannot lie,” Laurent continued, “Am I right in thinking mortals cannot lie in their service?”

“How did you-”

“I watched you and Nikandros talk; I am astonished you have lasted over six years in the Pale Country without learning how to mask your face.”

Damen grinned sideways. “Don’t tell Nik. If he ever got through the door, he’d never come back again.”

“There is another way through the door.” Laurent’s voice was ice.

“I would have to open the door for someone who offers me a sufficient price,” he admitted, “Not a glove or a golden pin; one of Their gifts, something permanent.”

“Such as?”

“All memories of your mother,” he suggested after a pause, “Every dream you would have had from now until the final sleep. Your ability to perform whatever skill you value most. The person you love above all others, to be their thrall. That kind of gift.”

“And you would take it?”

“It would blight your life,” Damen said, “I have seen men slowly driven mad by the loss of what they took.”

“But you would.”

Damen’s face contorted in pain. “I would have no choice.” He looked at Laurent pleadingly. “Don’t make me hurt you like that.”

Laurent realized suddenly that he had not suspected that Damen was mortal, despite knowing that the Prince of Akielos had been taken by them, and all the little clues he could now see that Damen was Akielon and a prince, because despite his talk of the Faerie  Queene owning him, he did not act like a thrall. He walked through Marlas like he and not the fairies owned it, ruler of all he surveyed; he spoke with the assumption that men would listen to him, that his word was law; he looked at Laurent like an equal even when calling him “your highness.” Now, with his open, guileless face displaying helplessness without shame, his broad, powerful body bent towards him in supplication, he looked like a captive for the first time. Laurent hated it. He wanted to break the world and mend it again so that the man before him could stand as tall and strong as he was meant to, confident and proud.

Instead, he faced it coldly and implacably.

“One way or another I am getting through that door and finding my brother,” he said.

“Then there is something you should have,” said Damen, getting up, “Wait here.”

Damen walked off into the fort and came back a few minutes later with a bulging sack in his arms. He crouched down beside Laurent and began pulling pieces out of it and laying them out upon the grass: first a mail shirt, of Veretian scale that clinked together as he laid it out; then all the the separate pieces that went with it - a breastplate to further protect the vital organs of the torso, two vambraces to shield the forearms, a helm emblazoned with a coat of arms; and lastly a straight longsword, still within its scabbard. The steel was polished to an almost silver shine, gold-plated wherever it was emblazoned with the starburst of the Crown Prince.

Laurent ran his hand over the metal scales, feeling them shift and move against his fingers.

“This is Auguste’s armor.”

“He had to leave it here,” Damen explained, “They don’t allow cold iron on the Other Side. It did not feel right to toss it out the border with the pots and pans, so I brought it into the fort and put it in the deepest cellar, where I hoped it would not be noticed. Their ground-dwellers are not bothered by the metals of the earth as the surface People are.”

“It is well-maintained,” Laurent remarked, pulling the sword part-way out of the sheath to see its shine.

“I get bored sometimes,” Damen admitted. “I should have given it to you long ago. I did not think.”

Laurent was still touching the armor, tracing a starburst emblem with his fingers.

“I have not seen this since the day he rode away.”

Around them he could hear the odd bell-like tinkles of the fairy flowers moving in the breeze. He closed his eyes, remembering, the pierce of longing that went through him then strong again, as if it was still fresh as when he had been a child. His fingers clutched at the different pieces, as if he could not bear to cease touching them.

He looked at Damen, who had restored this to him.

“This will be the first time I leave here with more than I came with instead of less,” he said, gesturing to the bounty in the grass.

“Not so fast, our business is not done,” said Damen, grinning. “You’ve trespassed here a second time today; I’m going to need your other glove.”

Laurent looked at him and started laughing.

* * *

By his twentieth birthday, Laurent had grown into a strong man of average height, slightly on the leaner side but still with a muscular build. At twenty-six, Auguste had been a man closer to Damen’s stature, and his armor did not fit. Laurent kept the pieces in a place of honor for his return, but he had the scale shirt altered for his proportions, and in the two weeks he spent in Acquitart, he had grown accustomed to Auguste’s sword, which was similar in weight and balance to what he commonly used. He wore the starburst now in his own right, until Auguste returned. A fleeting, childish part of him whispered that there was luck or charm in wearing the mail and wielding the sword of his brother, the only man who had ever won this fight, but he quashed it. If he won today - and he was confident that he had a more than fair chance - it would be from skill and preparation and sheer determined will. He was ready.

“I will not hold back,” Damen warned, as he saw Laurent come into the clearing by the hillside.

“Neither will I,” Laurent promised, and he raised his sword.

Laurent let Damen attack first - a quick sequence meant to lead into a catch, trying to disarm him and end the fight as soon as possible. Laurent countered easily, circling around so that he had space to move and letting Damen come for him, slipping back with each strike so that Damen always had to push forward to come for him. He used the twisting parries Jord and Orlant had taught him, some that he’d developed himself, countering without follow-through, twisting away like quicksilver, impossible to pin down.

“You are good,” Damen said, impressed and a little surprised.

“Are you?” Laurent countered, turning them both around at the edge of the clearing so they had more space to move back again. “I’m beginning to have doubts.”

Damen struck back with more speed than he had shown thus far, blade flashing through the air too quickly for Laurent to try any of his clever parries - he could only put up his sword with both hands and block. The shock of the blow moved through his wrists and shoulders, and he had to fight not to have the sword wrenched from his hands. But Damen was trying now, and that meant Laurent could too. He ran backwards across the grass before Damen could press his advantage, shaking his wrists as best he could, and prepared when Damen came back at him, ducking and weaving, controlling their movements. He had spent days in this field marking the direction and passage of the light and choosing his time of attack - as far as he could, he kept Damen angled with the sun in his eyes; even so, he had to use all his concentration in blocking the attack, keeping himself in the fight. Damen was good. In the absence of Auguste, Laurent had secretly become the best swordsman in Vere, but Damen was better. Every fancy move he made, Damen blocked; every trick he pulled, Damen caught and countered. He knew how to compensate for superior strength; he knew how to compensate for superior technique. Damen had both. _He fights like Auguste,_ Laurent realized in shock, and was suddenly not as certain as he had been that his brother’s victory had been a forgone conclusion.

“That’s one of Nik’s moves,” Damen said in surprise, as Laurent shifted between two typically Akielon thrusts, “Has he been teaching you?”

“Who better,” said Laurent, between a block and a strike, “To tell me how to match you than your oldest friend?”

“Nikandros has has not done so well matching me himself.”

“Good thing I have moves of my own then.”

Laurent stomped on Damen’s foot, not distracting him enough to make a strike, but slowing him just enough that he could concentrate on angling his blade with the next swing to send a flash of light into Damen’s eyes, momentarily blinding him. He swung at his unprotected side, but Damen recovered and got his sword up too quickly, meeting him in a clash of steel and fae silver. Laurent took the moment of struggle to kick Damen hard in the thigh, sending him stumbling back - and now Laurent was on the assault, pushing Damen back across the field. They weaved across the whole of the terrain, but although Laurent was quicker than any man he had faced - fast enough to out-maneuver Jord and get under Lazar’s guard before he realized what had happened - and had counted on speed to be his friend, Damen seemed to be just as fast, moving his sword into positions Laurent would have sworn he’d never make in time, recovering from Laurent’s every blow. He feinted - Damen went for it - Laurent came up under his guard - his body twisted - the sword was back blocking Laurent at an awkward angle, but before he could take advantage of it, an elbow was in his stomach and he fell back onto the grass.

The wind was knocked out of him. He felt like he’d been side-swiped by a panicking horse rather than a man. He lay there with one knee up, the sword still in his hand splayed out uselessly to his side. He got his wind back. He felt the tip of a sword graze the exposed skin of his neck.

“Yield,” Damen said.

_He will expect a Veretian to cheat,_ Nikandros had said, _But duplicity is not in his nature and the longer the fight goes on, the more he will forget to watch for it._

_Forgive the impertinence,_ Lazar had said, grinning like he didn’t care at all whether he was forgiven or not, _But you’re a damned cock-raising son of a bitch, your highness, and you’re an idiot if you don’t use it._

Laurent let his eyes widen as he gazed up at Damen, panting hard. He shifted under the blade, letting the slightest arch come to his back. His free hand curled into the grass, digging into the dirt underneath it. He let his mouth fall open, his lips go soft. He watched Damen’s pupils dilate and the hand holding the sword go ever so slightly slack.

He hurled a handful of dirt and grass directly into Damen’s eyes, and was on his feet with his sword back up while Damen was still stumbling back. Damen swiped his eyes and barely got his sword up to meet him. He was angry now, and his blows were harder. Laurent had to block everything two-handed, even when he angled himself so that Damen could only strike glancing blows. _He favors his right side,_ Nikandros had said, _But his swordmasters have made him aware of it and he watches and compensates. You can’t depend on it overmuch._ Laurent focused on Damen’s left side, just enough to drive him back to the edge of the wild grasses where the untouchable fairy flowers grew without him being aware of it. When he realized where he was about to tread, he had to jump and roll away, awkwardly ducking under Laurent’s strike. As he raised himself back into a stance some distance away, Laurent threw a knife at him that he barely managed to block away.

Damen came at him - wild, strong, fast, untouchable - and finally wrenched the sword out of Laurent’s grasp. Laurent kicked him in the balls and, while he was staggering back in pain, came up under his guard and brought a knife up. Damen dropped the sword to grab his wrist and now they were both unarmed. But Damen was the larger man, and Akielons were trained in wrestling. Soon Damen had him on the ground, both wrists pinned above his head and straddling him at the hips, legs bent to pin down Laurent’s thighs.

“Yield,” he said again. Laurent struggled, wrenched at his wrists, strained with his legs, bucked up with his hips, rolling them enticingly - but though he could feel Damen’s wakening interest, Damen had learned his lesson and only tightened his grip, bearing down on Laurent with his weight.

“Fine,” Laurent bit out, “I yield.”

Laurent felt like he had spent hours in the training yard and then run from here to Fortaine. His limbs ached and his body grappled with exhaustion, far more than he would have believed after one fight. Damen took his time getting off him.

“You fight well,” Damen said warmly. Laurent gave him a look.

Damen’s eyes were bright and he was breathing heavy, one-dimpled grin stretching across his face.

“You look like you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did.” He sounded exhilarated. “I haven’t had a fight like that in years.”

“Better than the famous Pallas?”

“Much better.” There was a heat in Damen’s voice that Laurent could feel reflected in his belly.

“Good enough to beat you if we fought a second time?”

“We can only try and see.” Damen was grinning broader now. “But I will make it harder for you, now I know your tricks.”

“Not all my tricks.”

Damen leaned closer to him. “I look forward to learning more then.”

“You are ridiculous.”

Damen was unrepentant. “You can’t tell me that you did not enjoy it too; I would know you were lying.”

Laurent wondered if Damen had felt something too, there at the end, and felt his cheeks redden.

“My brother beat you,” Laurent reminded him, before he could say anything else.

Damen nodded. “And you have almost five months left to try to match his feat.”

Laurent, who was already thinking about his next birthday, about the long game with his uncle and how he had mere months to win before he was disgraced and disinherited, or killed, or somehow miraculously prevailed and could no longer try to save his brother with the kingship weighing heavy on him, was brought up short.

“Why then?”

“The Fair Ones have their rules,” Damen said, “When they take you, they only keep you for seven years. After that, they have to decide either to let you go - or keep you forever.”

“And you don’t think they’ll keep you?”

Damen shrugged. “Can’t know for certain, but they only rarely do. They have short attention spans, and playthings do not keep their interest very long. My time is up in mid-autumn.”

“Does Nikandros know that?”

“He’d be here fighting me every day if he did.”

“You keep a great deal of secrets,” Laurent commented, “What happened to the straightforward Akielons so keen to call us deceitful?”

Damen shifted uncomfortably. “It is hard to help dealing in half-truths, living among them. When I return home, there will be no more need for secrecy and lies.”

“And after that, there will be another guardian here?”

“Perhaps you will have more luck with him.”

“Or perhaps they’d instill a true fae guard, whom I’d have no chance of beating at all.”

“Your brother’s time will be up only two seasons after mine,” Damen said, “You could simply wait for them to let him go.”

“If they keep anyone, they’ll keep Auguste,” Laurent said with certainty.

“Not everyone looks with a younger brother’s eyes.”

Laurent ignored him.

“I refuse to go back to my people looking and smelling like I’ve been rolling in the grass with barbarians,” he said, “Are there any waters here safe enough to bathe?”

“You are lucky that Veretians haven’t figured out aqueducts yet and are dependent on natural springs,” he said, getting up, “The fort’s baths still work.”

* * *

The baths in the fort did still work, though there were no servants to attend them, and Laurent made Damen turn around before he undressed and they sank into adjacent pools. They talked, while washing the sweat and dirt from their bodies, and Laurent lingered to soak and think after Damen had gotten out and started to dry himself.

“Can you light a fire here?” Laurent asked, unabashedly watching the expanses of brown skin slide in and out of view as Damen rubbed the towel over his body. “It will be getting dark.”

“I suppose I can, as long as I don’t burn any of Their plants,” Damen said, unembarrassed by his nudity or Laurent’s gaze, “It’s a fine night for a campfire.”

It was - the days had been hot recently, and the nights pleasantly warm and dark.

“I’ll find you by the light,” said Laurent, and he sank down deeper to go over again in his mind all aspects of his plan, and what would follow.

When he felt ready, Laurent got out, dried, and dressed, and walked away from Damen and to the border, where he coaxed his horse and led it back with him. The sky was half-purpled with the setting sun, but there was still enough light for them to pick their way back to Damen’s hill where he had made the fire.

“What’s this?” he asked, gesturing to the horse laden with saddlebags.

“It’s getting late,” Laurent said, taking down one of the packs and opening it, revealing a packed dinner. “I thought sharing my supper could be my price - unless you’ve already eaten while I was still in the baths.”

Damen shook his head and reached for the food that Laurent held out.

“You planned this,” he said, and Laurent said nothing.

They ate together, talking of simple things or else sitting in companionable silence. Damen seemed to like the spiced meat and the bread and cheeses Laurent had packed, but when he bit into a late strawberry Laurent had included as a treat, he made such a face that Laurent laughed.

“You do not have to eat them if you do not like them!”

“I have to get used to eating mortal food again,” he explained, “All their food is dangerous, but the fruits especially so. They are so sweet and tart and crisp and juicy all at once, the poets say that once you’ve eaten of them, all other food turns to ash in your mouth.” He frowned down at the half-eaten strawberry. “They are not entirely wrong.”

“Then acclimatize yourself,” said Laurent, pushing the bowl of strawberries towards him, and laughed at every face Damen made.

 

“You have a purpose, for lingering here so long,” said Damen, when what was left of their supper had been packed away and his horse stowed in what was left of Marlas’s stables for the night.

“I have,” Laurent agreed. “I have failed to defeat you in fair combat; I must offer you a price.”

“Try again,” Damen pleaded, “There is still a chance without losing yourself.”

“I have no intention of losing myself, but I don’t think trying again would be fruitful.”

“It could be.” When the set of Damen’s jaw went stubborn like that, he looked like a petulant child.

“It is said that you take the maidenhoods of the women who wander here,” said Laurent, “But I’ve not seen that you trouble yourself whether they are maidens or not. Still, the first time, that loss of innocence, must be worth more - and the virtue of a prince worth more than a peasant.”

“No,” Damen said, not a correction of what Laurent had said, but a rejection of this entire line of thought. That was not how Damen was meant to react; he was supposed to be interested and cocky, like the charged moments after their sword fight; like the unconcealed reluctance when he turned away to give Laurent privacy in the bath.

“I offer you my virginity. Is that a high enough price?”

“Don’t do this.”

“Don’t act like you don’t want it,” Laurent snapped, “You’ve been eyeing me since the first day - do you think I haven’t noticed?”

“Not like this! Not mercenary and -”

Laurent advanced on Damen like he had in the fight; Damen met him unmoving - his eyes were a challenge.

“You said you have no choice but to take the price that is offered you,” Laurent said. “Is. It. High. Enough.”

“Tell me that you want this,” Damen said, “Tell me that it isn’t just part of a plan.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” he asked, stepping closer, “All those people who come here, braving spells and risking reputations, all for a taste of this?”

Laurent reached out and ran his hand over Damen’s chest, feeling the muscles move, bringing it down over the flat line of his twitching abdomen, cupping between his legs. Damen’s arms flew up to grab his shoulders.

_“Laurent,”_ he said warningly, but he did not push Laurent away. He was strong enough to hold him back, if he wanted to, strong enough to throw him to the ground, to toss him halfway across the clearing. Instead he was holding Laurent there, fixing him in place so that he could move no closer, but not willing - not able - to push him any further away. He could see the war in Damen’s face, the part that wanted to stop this and the part that wanted to pull him close. He ran his fingers over what was hardening beneath them, exploring its shape through the cloth, teasing down the length.

“You have heard my offer,” Laurent said, voice steady and unaffected in a way that he did not feel, “Will it serve?” He pressed his thumbnail against what he judged was the tip through the layers of fabric.

“Yes,” Damen gasped, “Yes, it’s a fair price.”

“Then take what you want.”

_“Kiss me,”_ Damen said, and pulled Laurent against him.

It - it was not supposed to be like this. Damen kissed like that was the point, cupping Laurent’s face, moving against him tenderly. Laurent had dropped his hands in shock and Damen didn’t seem to care, except that it allowed him to get closer, pressing their bodies up against one another. When he had imagined this, it had been - quick, fierce, rough-and-tumble. It was not Damen holding him like he was the most precious thing in the world; soft, lingering kisses that coaxed his mouth open; moving forward, pressing deeper only as Laurent relaxed, slow as if they had all the time in the world to explore each other. _This means something to him_ , Laurent thought, and then, _He must make all his dalliances think that_ \- but he couldn’t make the second thought hold the bite it was supposed to. Damen let him go when he gently pulled away - damn his face for being always so open, his eyes gazing at him so helpless, filled with emotion that Laurent dared not name.

“I - you don’t have to worry, that I am - unwilling. I - I have no objection to-” The words were tumbling out of him out of his control, and he stopped them before they could go too far. Truth had no place between them now, not when Laurent was lying, when this was a trick.

Damen, reassured, smiled at his reticence, lost the hint of desperation at the corners of his eyes. He stepped forward again and stopped Laurent’s mouth for him, tender and deep. _He’s so warm,_ Laurent thought, ridiculously.

“There are still beds in the keep, in some of the upper rooms,” Damen said, and Laurent thought of stuffy chambers and dusty linens, closed and confined.

“No, here,” he said, in the open air, under the stars, “Take me here.”

_Where you’ve tumbled all your other lovers, where I will not be fooled into thinking this is something special._

In the light of the dying fire, Damen’s skin glowed. Before he could say anything noble and heartfelt, Laurent held out his wrist.

“Attend me,” he said, in his most imperious spoiled prince.

Damen moved forward with the courtesy of a lover. He fumbled on the laces.

“Why are Veretian clothes so complicated?”

“I suppose that yours just dissolve into moonlight when you tire of them.”

“Not quite.” He finally had the laces of one sleeve done and moved to work on the other. “But I fail to see why one must wait a half an hour to get at your lover’s skin.”

“If it takes a half an hour, you’re doing it wrong.”

Damen gestured to the complicated mess of laces spanning Laurent’s torso, fanning out over his chest and twisting around each other into an abstract butterfly shape. It had taken three people far longer than half an hour to construct that arrangement when Laurent had first been fitted for this jacket, but aside from periodic tightenings, it had not been touched since. He turned around and showed Damen the practical lacing on his back, meant to be done and undone by attendants for getting in and out.

“It still seems unnecessary,” he said, as he brushed Laurent’s hair out of the way and started on the first laces. He could feel Damen’s presence behind him, huge and unmistakable.

“Akielons are said to be a crude, barbarian people,” Laurent commented, “Perhaps you are too primitive to understand the sophisticated pleasure of anticipation; of wanting something, and being made to wait.”

“If you think I have not known since the day you pulled the rose, what it is to want something and wait, then you have not been paying as much attention as you think.”

He leaned closer as he spoke, so Laurent could feel the whisper of his breath upon his neck, sending tingling sensations down his spine and over his arms.

“There are more laces on the trousers,” Laurent said, as Damen slid the jacket off his shoulders and ran his hands over his body through the thin linen of his shirt. Damen breathed a laugh into his ear.

“If you’ll consent to deal with those yourself, I’ll be right back.”

“You are leaving?” His voice was incredulous.

“What happened to the sophisticated thrill of anticipation? Overrated?” Damen moved in the direction of the fort. “I assume you brought oil.”

“In the small bag by the fire.”

But Damen had already moved beyond its light and Laurent stood there waiting, electing not to be helpful until he was no longer alone. When Damen returned, he had already dispensed with his own boots and brought with him not only Laurent’s bag but also a length of green fabric that Laurent recognized as the cloak Damen had taken from him the first day he visited Marlas. He spread it out on the ground before them.

“If I’d known what purpose that would serve, I would have tried harder to keep it,” Laurent said.

“I’ve never bedded anyone else on top of it, if that’s what you mean.”

Laurent, in his shirt, decided there was no reason he should be the one to get naked first. When Damen stood, he grabbed him by the belt and pulled him forward, letting Damen kiss him again as he busied his hands unfastening it and letting it drop to the ground where they stood. He slipped his hands under Damen’s tunic and pushed it up, running his fingers up the strong curves of his torso as he did. Damen, seeing what Laurent was about, raised his arms helpfully, assisting in pulling it up over his head. He ducked back to kiss Laurent again just once before agreeably continuing what Laurent had started, pulling his shirt free of his pants and yanking it over his head, while Laurent worked the leggings down over the bulge that was straining them. He put a hand on Laurent’s shoulder to step out of them, and soon he was standing fully nude before a still mostly dressed Laurent, comfortable and unembarrassed. Not that he had anything to be embarrassed about, Laurent thought, trailing his eyes down Damen’s body. Ah. Everywhere in proportion, then.

Damen soon tired of being admired and reached for the laces on Laurent’s pants, working at the knots and pulling them free, his fingers brushing against Laurent’s cock through the fabric as he worked, drawing little gasps from Laurent. _That’s good,_ he thought, _Seeming unprepared is good. You want him to believe you’re inexperienced._ But there was a difference between aping vulnerability and having real artless little sounds bursting from him helplessly, and he had to fight the instinct to wrest back control.

“Kiss me,” Laurent said, and Damen obliged, leaning forward to reach his mouth and effectively stopping him from making any other sounds he might regret.

The laces on his pants finally slipped free, and Damen used the extra room to pull his shirt out and up, running his large hands over Laurent’s ribs and chest and only breaking the kiss at the last moment to push it up over his head.

Laurent stepped back before Damen could reach for him again, feeling the air on his skin as he watched Damen toss his discarded shirt aside. He flung himself down onto the cloak, feeling the fabric against his back, and swung his leg up to press a boot into Damen’s advancing chest.

“Well?” he said, eyebrows raised.

Heat poured over Damen’s face, but instead of falling upon Laurent and ravishing him as he half-expected, he met Laurent’s eyes and continued staring into them as he deliberately pulled his boot off and dropped it behind him. Still holding Laurent’s gaze, he slipped the silk sock down over Laurent’s heel and pressed a searing kiss to his ankle. Laurent flushed down to his exposed chest and all at once felt that he, and not the naked man in front of him, was the ridiculous one, lying there with his pants hanging open and his foot in the air. Damen gently placed his foot down and repeated the same actions with the other, eyes never leaving Laurent’s hot face, then he grabbed the legs of Laurent’s pants and tugged, and both of them were bare to each other under the stars.

Damen wasted no time in climbing down on top of him and reclaiming his mouth, and they were deliciously skin-to-skin, bodies moving against each other and their hard cocks rubbing together with every shift. Laurent felt himself arching his back without consciously deciding to, seeking more friction as Damen licked into his mouth. He had - it had never been like this. The give and take of it, the way Damen treated each part of the process like an end in itself to be savored and appreciated, not rushed through as a necessary prelude to the real point of things.

“Can’t you get on with it?” said Laurent, feeling like if he wasn’t broken as soon as possible, something inside him would break instead. His walls, perhaps, or the spine of steel he needed to survive his uncle’s court.

“Impatient,” Damen said fondly, nipping his bottom lip.

Damen found the bottle and poured it over his hand, then he stroked Laurent’s cock with his slick fingers before caressing farther back until he discovered what Laurent had done in the bath after Damen had left him.

“Very impatient,” he said, surprised and amused.

“As you said, I planned this.”

Damen’s fingers were thicker than his own, and he did not seem to find the task being done for him to be any reason to be less thorough. He stretched Laurent out slowly and with relish, thrusting his fingers in a foretaste of what was to come and searching around until he had located the spot that made him seize. He was about to say something bitchy like _Does your cock not work? Or were you planning on using your fingers all night?_ when Damen leaned forward - (the change in the angle of his fingers made Laurent jolt) - and said in his ear, in that terribly earnest voice of his,

“Tell me how you like it.”

“Wh-what?” Laurent gasped, forgetting to fight for composure.

“What’s your pleasure? How do you like to be taken?”

“I told you, I’m a virgin.”

“You must touch yourself.”

Laurent didn’t, actually - hadn’t since all the horrible things that had come when he’d really lost his virginity. But that was not the point, the point was -

“This is a transaction.” Damen’s fingers had mercifully slowed enough for him to speak. “There’s no need to be precious about it.”

“Now who’s oversimplifying,” Damen said, “Complicated Veretian. It’s two transactions: your gift for my opening the door, but also your pleasure for mine - what our bodies can do to each other. How would you have me please you?”

“I want it to be -” _over soon_ would probably not be received well “- simple.”

“Turn over,” Damen said, removing his fingers, and Laurent was grateful for the cloak between him and the grass as he turned onto his front, sliding into the familiar position. He thought, with his face turned away like this, he might forget who he was with and be able to bury himself in the far-away place he used to go to when this happened. But there was no chance of that, with Damen’s unmistakable arms bracing himself on either side of Laurent, with that chest brushing against his back and that mouth breathing against him and occasionally dropping kisses on the back of his neck. Damen entered him slowly, thrusting shallowly as Laurent’s body got used to the intrusion and inching his way carefully forward as the muscles relaxed. Fully seated, Damen was huge and even with twice the preparation, Laurent felt almost unbearably full. He felt surrounded, Damen all around him, Damen inside him, overwhelmingly present and unmistakably himself. There would be no retreating from this in his mind; there was no part of him that wanted to.

When Damen finally started to move, he was already on the edge of a precipice. It was not supposed to be like this, he thought, as Damen moved carefully inside him, seeking Laurent’s pleasure as much as his own and finding it successfully. It was not supposed to be actively participating, moving with the rhythm and pushing back against the thrusts, not caring about the whimpers and moans dropping from his mouth to mingle in the air with Damen’s grunts. It was not supposed to be Damen pulling out and asking him to turn around again, telling him that he needed to see his face, telling him that it’s never been like this, speaking his name like an orison, like the most sacred of all the words. It was not supposed to be the stars wheeling over Damen’s shoulder; chirping insects and the chiming of the flowers and the song of a nightbird Laurent did not know, joining with their noise in a sweet night music; the dark of the night air all around them and warmth in the circle of their arms. Damen gradually losing himself, the thrusts growing rougher and more erratic, the noises in his throat more primal. Laurent fighting the old battle with his body to let him have this, and _winning._ Arching his back and spilling his pleasure in a warm arc between them, Damen lasting just long enough to fuck him through the tremors and the aftershocks - his body going loose-limbed and golden, suffused with warmth and satiation and an uncomplicated affection that did not care at all that this was part of a scheme. It was not supposed to be _this._

 

Laurent got up and fetched a handkerchief from the pockets of his discarded clothes, pouring over it some of the water left from the remains of their dinner, and bringing it back to their rumpled lovenest, he cleaned first Damen and then himself. Damen chuckled.

“What?”

“I knew you were kind, underneath the prickliness,” Damen said fondly, “I didn’t know you could be sweet too.”

“Whatever made you think I was kind?” Laurent asked, amused.

“The way you’re fighting for your brother. And I’ve seen you with your horse.”

Laurent flushed, but in the pleased-happy-drowsy feeling that came to him after fucking, the fear of having someone else see him failed to materialize.

Damen kissed him lightly. “I can be sweet too,” he said, getting up.

Laurent did not see where he went, but he came back shortly, carrying another large cloak that he wrapped around them both as they lay back down. The material was lighter than any of the blankets that would have remained in the fort, and better suited to the warmth of the early summer night - but its size also meant that they had to curl together quite close to stay under it, and Laurent wondered if that wasn’t also the plan - his honorable Akielon finally being artful.

Still, if that was Damen’s purpose, Laurent felt warm and cuddly enough not to mind playing into his hands.

 

When he woke, it was due to the chill in the air - he had drifted far enough away from Damen to feel it. He shifted back to the warmth of the body lying next to him, and saw in the moonlight that Damen was also awake, and watching him.

“I’ve given you my price,” Laurent said.

“Yes,” Damen said. And then, “In the morning. It is even more dangerous there at night. I would not send you before dawn.”

“Dawn,” Laurent said, “We have all night then.”

“Yes.”

Laurent absorbed this. The warm feeling from earlier had not left him.

“Well,” he said, rolling over and on top of him so he was straddling Damen’s hips, “We’d best make the most of it.”

 

Dawn broke with a chill that belied the warmth of the day before and the day to come, and sent Laurent scrambling back into Damen’s heat one last time before drifting back into another hour of sleep. When they woke for the last time, the sun was low in the sky and it was time for Laurent to depart. They went to the baths together, washing the evidence of last night’s activities from their bodies in a strange, heady intimacy Laurent was not familiar with - to be naked with another person, touching and being touched, without sex being part of it. Afterwards, Laurent dressed and shouldered the pack he’d prepared.

“You cannot take in iron or steel,” said Damen.

Laurent partially withdrew his sword, different from the one he’d worn the previous day that had been Auguste’s. “It’s bronze,” he said, “From the days of the Artesian Empire. I took it from the armory.” So was the dagger that hung from his belt, and the one concealed in his boot, and the one up his sleeve.  Auguste’s sword, and his armor, Laurent would trust Damen to look after again until he returned.

“Have you anything else on you? A buckle, a pin, anything you might have overlooked?”

Laurent shook his head, He had gone over everything thoroughly.

“And you have enough of your own food?”

“As much as I can carry.”

“There is some water there that is safe to drink, but you have to be careful when asking. They will not lie, but they will call something ‘safe’ that merely will not kill you, even if it leaves you changed. You have to be specific.”

“I know. And I have water of my own, for when I cannot find any.”

“Eat only your own food as long as you can. Be wary of promises. Don’t -”

“Don’t insult them, guard my true name, watch out for trickery and deceit. Yes, I know the rules.” Laurent shifted his pack. “If you set my horse free beyond the border, she should know her way back to a familiar stable by herself.”

“The horses from the fort have formed a feral herd. I could set her free here and see if she wants to join them or make her way home.”

Laurent pictured her running free away from his uncle’s court, and nodded. They said that once let feral, horses did not willingly return to the bit, but Auguste had raised this one from a foal and Laurent had had her since - it was not impossible that, when he returned, she would retain enough loyalty to come at his call.

Laurent took a look at Damen’s face and smiled.

“I have been preparing for this for the last six years. You needn’t look that worried.” He looked back at the fort of Marlas one last time. “But this is your last chance if you can think of anything useful to tell me that you haven’t already.”

“She likes games,” Damen said, after a pause, “The Faerie Queene.”

Laurent’s grin widened. “So do I.”

Laurent did not see Damen do or say anything, but as they turned back towards the green hill, a split in the grass suddenly opened. It started at the foot of the hill and moved upwards until it was twice as high as Damen was tall, and then the hill parted like the opening of an unlaced jacket, revealing a rift like a pointed arch. There was light inside the archway, and from it came strange music and more of the cool wind that moved through Marlas, but deeper somehow, stranger. Beyond the light, Laurent thought he could see the blurry outlines of a landscape, grass and trees and sky, but faraway and indistinct. He stepped towards it.

Damen put a hand on his arm. “For luck,” he said, and kissed him. Laurent kissed back.

Then he squared his shoulders and walked into the hillside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at the artwork, look at it, it's so amazing, please tell @Little_white_angel how much you like it in the comments i'm incoherent it's so beautiful ([check out the artwork here!](http://silverdropart.tumblr.com/post/180518543131/hi-guys-so-here-is-my-first-fanart-for-the))


	4. Chapter 3

_There’s four and twenty ladies fae_  
_Weaving webs of silk_  
_Prince Laurent goes among them all  
His face is white as milk_

 _And four and twenty gentlemen_  
_Playing lives like chess_  
_Prince Laurent goes among them all  
As smooth as any glass_

Since Laurent had gone into the hill, Damen found himself more concerned with what had happened to Auguste than he had been before. He had never seen again the young man who had disarmed him as he wandered through the fae realm, but Faerie was vast and he had not seen the whole of it. Even in the ever moving center of the Queene’s Court that gathered around her wherever she happened to be and where Damen spent most of his time, there were people coming and going whom he did not know, whom he’d never chanced to meet. He and Auguste might have crossed paths a dozen times and never seen each other, distracted by the marvelous sights appearing all around them. Or Auguste might have stumbled into a fairy trap, and lie under spell and in need of rescue. Or he might be dead.

It was easier to think about what could have happened to Auguste than about what might be happening to Laurent.

Now, as Damen wandered through the High Court, he kept an eye out, scanning crowds for blond hair and hoping to encounter at least one of the Veretian Princes. For weeks, his attempt was fruitless until - yes. It _was_ Auguste, as he remembered him, standing at the edge of the circle the courtiers made around the Faerie Queene’s throne. His eyes were fixed not on the  Queene, but on the center of the space before her, where a petitioner seemed to stand, blocked from Damen’s view. Damen moved, ducking under antlers and peering over pointed caps until he could see. It was Laurent, standing before the throne looking calm and unaffected, as princely as Damen had ever seen him. The court rang with the  Queene’s tinkling laugh.

Not caring for the moment for injured pride and stored resentments, for anything other than getting as close to Laurent as possible, Damen shouldered through the crowd until he reached the edge of the ring, a spot where he could see him.

“Easy,” said his neighbor, jostled as Damen managed to force a space next to her, “You’ve never cared so much for these proceedings before.”

“What’s happening?”

The woman beside him flicked her ears, soft and pointed like a cat’s, extending from her silver hair. He had danced with her, of a Midsummer, not so long ago.

“The mortal’s been here a week,” she murmured quietly, “Every day he comes to the petitions with one new scheme after another to convince our lady to release his brother, and each day he fails. But he has proved slippery enough to avoid being caught in her snares himself. He declines food without insult, refuses gifts without offence, and avoids committing his honor with more deftness than I have seen in a man doomed to age and die.” She smiled. “I am starting to root for him.”

“You have kept us entertained these many days, young mortal,” the  Queene was saying. Her voice was like bells and it echoed all around them - merry as the springtime, solemn as a prayer. You could hear infinities in that voice, if you were not careful, and even knowing what he did, Damen could not entirely dispel the sharp pang of yearning that tugged at his heart when it reached his ears. “But we weary of entreaties, and our patience grows short. We have denied you twice today; make this third attempt your last appeal of all.”

Laurent bowed. “Your ladyship has been gracious to hear my pleas thus far. I only try your fair patience because my brother is precious to me. Is there anything you would have of me in return for him that I have failed to offer you?”

She laughed again. “You have no power here, mortal Prince, and we have no need for earthly riches. Unless you would like to offer yourself in his stead?”

“That would be pleasing to you?”

“Your brother is a man more to my liking, but we have enjoyed him for six years now. We may find use for you.”

She smiled, warm and lovely as the sun, and Damen shivered.

“Then would your ladyship accept a wager?”

“What wager?”

“It has pained me to be separated from my brother. I beg that you will separate us no more. He will be allowed to go with me, if you agree, and neither you nor your agents nor any act or will of yours will sunder us. I, who came here of my own free will and have not yet accepted your most gracious hospitality, am free to leave your realms if I can, is this not so?”

“It is.”

“Then in the weeks and months to follow, I endeavor to find a way to cross, with no more hindrance nor danger than any other mortal who stumbles into your lands. If I succeed, my brother goes home with me, and neither you nor any of yours will steal us back, or curse us, or punish us for it in any way. But if the day comes when my brother will have spent seven years here, and I have not brought us home, then I will stay with you for whatever purpose you see fit.”

“And why should I agree to this rather than a clean trade?”

“If I lose, your ladyship will have two mortal princes to do with as she likes. And it will not be an easy thing, to find a way home from here. Our efforts might amuse you.”

“Our realms are not kind to mortals, that is true.” She considered him. Damen felt an absurd desire to put himself between them, and it was by tremendous effort that he kept himself still.

“We will play your game, mortal, but with a few terms of our own,” she continued, “The mark of Auguste’s seven years gives you too long to play. You must find your way back before the Hunter’s Moon, when the walls are thin and too easy to slip between.”

He could see Laurent doing the calculations in his head, considering the distance between this summer day and the high autumn of the Hunter’s Moon.

“That would be acceptable.”

“And the Court recognizes the love between two brothers, but Auguste has accepted our hospitality and is now bound to our service - in this, he shall continue, and may be called away from you at any time.”

“That is a fair condition, Lady, yet if he is called to service all day every day, then I will have lost his company the same as if we were always kept asunder.”

“Clever mortal.” The  Queene smiled. “Very well, we shall keep him with us for no more than a half day at a time, and never for two days together. Will that suit you?”

“It suits me well, your ladyship.”

“Then I do give my word and bond, that as long as you keep yours, none of my people shall harass or harry you in my name while you are set in this endeavor, and let you and your brother go without revenge or punishment if you succeed.”

“And I do give my word and bond to stay and serve you if I fail.”

“No!” cried Damen, stepping forward. Laurent had promised him that he would give no promises.

Laurent’s eyes flicked to him and back.

“Ah,” Laurent said, lowering his eyes. “A fair reminder. Your ladyship has done well for me in giving me your word. My own I intend to keep, but there should be no lies between us, and I must confess that, in the desperation to retrieve my brother, I have not always been so honest, as I am right now.”

“No?” she asked, leaning forward on her white hand.

“No,” his voice sank as though ashamed, “Great Lady, you should know that you have made your deal with a trespasser and a fraud. I came into your country by trickery and deceit. I cheated your door guardian; I have no right to be here at all.”

“Really? And so you should be banished, and win your way home without further striving.” She was still smiling, dangerous, but entertained. “A clever trick, if accurate. And did he cheat you, my brave warrior?”

Damen stepped forward, entering the circle and stepping next to Laurent, giving him a sideways glare. He did not know what Laurent was planning, but it seemed a plan of long making, and he did not like being drawn into another’s games.

“No, my lady.”

“But I did, your ladyship,” Laurent corrected, “When I failed to earn my way inside through combat, I offered him my virginity in trade for opening the door. He took me.” Laurent glanced at him. “But virginity is something I no longer had to give. The gift was false.”

“It was not,” Damen said.

“It was,” Laurent insisted, “Perhaps you are too blind to recognize true inexperience, but I know what I have done.”

“I do not wield the magic of my own free will,” Damen said, “If I had been tricked, the door would not have opened for me. The magic worked, so the gift was true.”

Laurent’s voice became dangerous. “The magic lied then, for when I lost my innocence it was certainly not at your clumsy hands.”

“The magic cannot lie.”

“And yet it did.”

Damen looked at Laurent, standing there with a calm Damen now knew him well enough to understand was false. Slender as a young birch and strong as a red oak. He remembered Laurent under him, physically knowledgeable but easily overwhelmed, inured to the sensation of a man thrusting inside him but so surprised whenever anything felt good.  In his gut, a sick rage started to grow, blurring the edges of his vision.

“It was a gift, what you offered me,” Damen said, low and menacing, though it was not Laurent he wished to menace. “Gifts cannot be forced.”

Laurent went white suddenly, limbs stiff enough to show discomfort, and Damen recoiled at the confirmation that the worst of what he’d guessed was true.

“Forced,” Laurent repeated. His voice was dangerous.

“Clever mortal!” the Queene cried cheerfully from her throne.  Laurent barely turned to look at her. “Oh, don’t glare so. We are not ascribing meaning to anything that happened to you. You may look at it as you like. But magic has its own rules, and if you offer someone the gift of being the first person you freely decide to lay down with, then of course it would not count any previous encounter that was coerced.”

Laurent spared the Queene barely a glance before turning his frigid glare back to Damen, and he knew it was a sign of the control Laurent was losing, that he should risk ignoring so dangerous a foe.

“If coercion doesn’t count, then I have still cheated you. I would never have endured your fumbling attentions if it was not the only way I could see to get back my brother.”

Damen did not flinch, but he felt the words like a lash, each one a stripe on his back. The sweetness they had found together under the stars when they let the the barriers down between them was a cherished and private memory for him. To have it dragged into the public view of the court, dissected and discussed, with Laurent looking at him so coldly it was as if they had never touched, was agony.

“Of course, and the second and third times must have been to rescue your two other brothers, whom we have not yet heard of, ” Damen said, remembering the warmth of Laurent above him, the breathy little cry he’d made on his release.

Laurent let out a spiteful laugh. “One and a half times, if we’re being generous. I take pity on your other lovers if you consider a pathetic, mewling display when you didn’t even manage to stick it in to count.”

Damen remembered which one of them had been mewling when Laurent had been gently rocking against him, Damen kissing his neck, and he burned to hear a memory so cherished twisted into a weapon, made to hurt.

“When we made love -”

Just because I took pity on your desperation to touch me again does not mean that I wanted or enjoyed it.”

“That’s not how it was.”

“No? You said, ‘Let me see your face,’ you said, ‘I need - ’”

“Stop this!” Damen shouted, cutting him off. “Do you think I don’t remember what you said, don’t have words of my own I could throw at you? How can you stand there and twist this into something other than what it was, as if I don’t know what happened between us?”

Laurent was vibrating with tension now, his face turning red again. Damen could tell he was gearing up for something even more awful. He felt an urge to clap a hand over that mouth, to take Laurent by the shoulders and force him to cease dissembling, to admit what they had done for what it was. The Faerie Queene clapped her hands once, delighted, at all at once the presence of the rest of the court rushed in, and Damen was burning with rage and humiliation at having his private business aired for public display, maneuvered into a place where he had no options but to stand there and take it, or fight back and be made complicit in his own degradation.

“Delightful,” said the Queene, “As compelling a drama as our court has seen in many a day!” She turned to Laurent. “But it has been made clear that you were most thoroughly deflowered, so your entrance to our kingdom was well earned, and you must find your own way home.” She smiled. “I will not wish you luck mortal, though you will need it.”

Laurent bowed deeply to her and stalked away, the watching creatures tittering as they made room for him to pass between them.

“Well done,” she said to Damen, as though he were a dog who had performed a clever trick.

* * *

Somewhere in the back of Auguste’s mind, there had remained an image of Laurent exactly as he had left him six years ago: shy, bookish, and thirteen - intelligent and capable, but still in need of his big brother to protect him from the world. He had known that time was passing and that Laurent would be growing, but he had known it in the abstract, and somewhere down in the irrational heart of him he had still been expecting a blond child to run into his arms whenever he finally returned home. He was not truly prepared to be confronted with a young man, much less one so different from the earnest, retiring scholar he had imagined little Laurent growing into, a man with sharp edges and closed off spaces that had not existed when he had been a boy. He loved him, the same as he always had, but he did not know how to shape his love around this strange new person.

“Do you need me to kill him?” Auguste asked, as they walked away from a delightfully scandalized court.

Laurent’s spine was taut as a bowstring, his shoulders like a marble slab. “If I wanted someone dead I would do it myself.”

“When we get home, we will be talking of it, and I will kill him regardless,” Auguste said firmly, only because he was too sick from the revelation of what must have happened to his brother while he was gone to consider it now. “I meant the other him.”

“Damen?” Laurent said, and despite the vitriol he had just displayed before the court, he sounded surprised at the idea. “No, there’s no need for for that.” Laurent unbent just a fraction. “He was more the wronged party than I was,” Laurent admitted, just a little shamefaced, and Auguste couldn’t help but wonder what the relationship between his brother and this man actually was.

But when Damen caught up with them a moment later, that did not stop Laurent from whirling around in fury, hackles raised again and ready to attack.

“Come to hear more about your inadequacies? Or perhaps you harbored thoughts of revenge? Going to throw me down and show me what you can - “

Damen stalked forward and Auguste got between them, throwing an arm across his chest. Damen barely glanced at him before continuing to talk to Laurent over Auguste’s shoulder.

“I am not,” he said, cutting off Laurent’s tirade, “Your enemy.”

“Even after I tried to fool you to swindle your  Queene? Even after I humiliated you in front of her court?”

“No.”

“Then you are a fool,” Laurent said coldly, “Any man who treated me thus would be made sorry for it.”

“But usually you are a man of such an easy temper,” Damen said dryly.

Laurent snorted, bitter and resigned. “Why are you here then?”

“I have a question for you.”

Laurent nodded warily.

“The … man who was before me-”

“Would you like me to describe it in detail?” Laurent asked. His voice was dangerous. “All the graphic particulars, so you can see how you compared?”

Auguste flinched at hearing his brother talk like this, but Damen ignored it.

“Does he live?” he asked instead.

“Yes,” Laurent said.

Damen put his hand on the hilt of his sword and tightened it. “Where?” he asked, and Auguste felt a brief pang of fellow-feeling for him.

“Not in Marlas.”

“When you get back to Vere, can you get him there?”

“When we get back to Vere, I will have more important things to worry about than you pretending you’re defending my honor by avenging your wounded pride,” Laurent said sharply, “Now was there anything else, or have you followed after me only to waste my time?”

“Waste your time away from what? Do you even know where you’re going, now that your plan has failed?”

“We’re going to make for the Midsummer Market,” Auguste said. The suggestion had been Laurent’s first words to him as they left the horrible circle of the court, before Auguste had gathered the courage to probe him about Damen. The Midsummer Market was a festival in a small mountain village in Vask where fairy folk would come for a single day to trade their wares. Laurent had heard of it in the mortal world, and Auguste had been there once before from this side, and knew the way to the crossing point.

“Oh.” Damen deflated a little against the pressure of Auguste’s arm. “That is what I would have suggested.”

“I’m glad it meets with your approval,” Laurent said flatly, “Now, our travel time will be short so if you will excuse us …”

He turned and started walking away without waiting to see if Damen would excuse them, or if Auguste would follow.

“I’ll catch up to you on the road,” Damen said, nodding to his back.

Laurent whirled around.  “Why?”

“There’s something I need to take care of here, before -”

“Why are you catching up to us?”

“To help,” Damen said, as if it was obvious.

Laurent stopped short. “Do you remember what I did to you, just now before the court?”

“You were angry, and you tried to hurt me,” Damen said flatly, “It worked.”

“And what, you are so strong and good that all attempts to injure roll off your massive hide in a pool of magnanimity?”

“Laurent, of course I’m angry at you,” Damen said, blinking at him like he was surprised that he needed to explain this, “What does me being angry have to do with helping you?”

He left Laurent standing speechless as he went back towards the court, and Auguste felt a wave of resentment at Damen for understanding this adult stranger who was his brother better than he did himself, and for the revelations about his brother’s sex life that Auguste had been forced to witness, and for being what seemed like too good a man, despite all that, for Auguste to effectively hate.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to beat him up even a little?” Auguste asked, when Damen was out of earshot.

Laurent unstiffened and rolled his eyes. “No,” he said Then he stopped, and his face changed like he was constructing a plan. “Perhaps.”

 

By the time Damen caught up with them later in the day, both his and Laurent’s tempers had cooled, though they were still standoff-ish with each other as Damen handed Laurent a pack of food that he had gathered from the Queene’s table. It was a well-timed gift, as they were running low on the stores of what Laurent had brought from the human world, and if Laurent became hungry enough to accept their hospitality, as Auguste had, then he would be trapped here as well and the plan would come to nothing.

“But if this comes from her table, is it not as dangerous as taking it myself?” Laurent asked.

“No,” said Damen, “I have the right to take of her stores as long as I serve her, and once it is mine to have, it’s mine to give.  But if you’re worried -”

He put his hands back on the leather pack so that he and Laurent were holding it together.

“I give you this freely and of my own will, and you owe me nothing in return for it,” he said aloud, before removing his hands again. Auguste noticed they were both careful not to allow their hands to touch.

“The door in the hill,” Laurent went on, after he had thanked Damen and shouldered the pack beside his own, “Could you open it from this side?”

“I don’t know,” Damen said in surprise. “I’ve never tried.” His face went distant for a moment.

“I think so,” he said, “I can’t control it now, but it’s as if I can feel it there, waiting for me.”

“Do you think you could open it if the conditions were met?” Laurent asked.

“It’s possible.”

Laurent gestured at Auguste. “Have at him.”

Auguste grinned and lifted his sword.

* * *

“You are out of practice,” Laurent said, looking at his brother. Auguste’s chest was heaving and he hadn’t yet recovered his sword from where it lay on the ground. “And Damen’s had six years to improve. And he told me he was only nineteen the first time, I’m sure he’s bigger now.”

In the back of his mind, Laurent was aware that his continued fumbling was making this worse not better. But somehow he could not stop himself. Auguste had lost. Fairly and cleanly, Auguste had lost. That was not right, that was not how things worked. He felt the world had twisted on its axis, throwing him into a deeper unreality than when he had entered the hill and walked into this strange place.

“I am out of practice,” Auguste admitted, “I’ve kept up with my exercises, but I haven’t done any sparring. I should have sought out a partner.”

Damen retrieved Auguste’s sword for him and handed it back. “That was remarkably close for a man who has not sparred in six years,” he said, extending the hilt. Auguste took it with a nod of thanks.

“You will win the next one,” Laurent insisted, with a hint of desperation.

“Not the next one,” Auguste said calmly. He was taking this much better than Laurent was. “Nor the one after that, I think. But I’ll be back in shape in time.”

“What will it take to get us a rematch?” Laurent asked. Damen was not exactly a hard bargainer, it should not be too difficult to get him to agree. “Perhaps we could arrange for you to meet us on the road, or only if we don’t make it to the market on time …”

“But I am coming with you,” Damen said, as if that had been decided. It had not.

“I told you I wanted to help,” he said, looking between the two of them as if he was surprised that they were surprised.

Laurent scoffed. “Oh? Out of the goodness of your heart, of course, because you won’t be getting out of it what you think you will.”

The night with Damen had been - different than he had imagined, but that didn’t mean that he was willing to let Damen fuck him in front of his brother, or waste time that they didn’t have skulking out of earshot.

“Obviously, I’m helping out of gratitude for your high opinion of me,” Damen said sourly. Most of Damen’s anger seemed to have worked itself out in the exertion of the fight with Auguste, but it was creeping back now in the grim lines around his face.

“You underestimate how boring life at the fae court can be for a mortal if you are surprised at a man taking any excuse for an occupation,” Auguste cut in, before they could start fighting again. Then, turning to Damen, “Still, I would be easier in my mind if your help came with a price so that we would not owe you any favors.”

Damen nodded, his growing offense at Laurent fleeing into an easy acceptance, and Laurent was struck by how much these two men were of a type - not just physically of similar build, but with the same straightforward sense of honor, and the ability to relate to each other as like-minded people.  They were practically strangers to each other, but not to him, yet Laurent could not escape the eerie feeling that he was the odd man out.

Damen considered Auguste’s words for a moment, then turned to Laurent. “When you get back to Vere, seek Nikandros out and tell him what you’ve observed of my life here. I don’t think he’s ever quite believed me that I’m not being chained up and tortured.”

“And for that, you will venture with us on this journey, aid us when we need it, and let Auguste challenge you whenever he feels like it?”

“I’m very fond of Nikandros,” Damen said mildly.

Laurent rolled his eyes. “Then I accept your terms.”

They shook hands.

“Who is Nikandros?” asked Auguste, as they started moving again.

“An old friend of mine, who taught Laurent Akielon swordfighting.”

“Since when does my younger brother sword fight in the Akielon style?”

“You should practice with him,” Damen suggested, “He knows some tricks with a blade that I’ve never seen before.”

“Really?” Auguste turned to look at him. “The bookish little scholar, a master swordsman! Things have changed.”

Auguste smiled at him with easy respect, and Laurent’s sense of isolation vanished, but he did not know how to respond to a world where Laurent knew sword tricks that Auguste didn’t as if it was not a world with the bottom dropped out of it, and he felt wrong-footed all over again to see Auguste accept it so easily.

After a moment of silence, Auguste’s eyes softened. “Is it so hard for you, to see me off my pedestal?”

“No, I - ” Laurent mastered himself. “You are still Auguste and my brother. That has not changed.”

“Never,” Auguste said, “But I am not so far above you as I was when you were a boy. We are nearly of a height now.”

“You are still taller,” Laurent insisted.

“My brother Kastor is nine years older than I am,” Damen said, “I used to follow him like a duckling.”

“I did not ask.

“It was a rocky thing, when I grew enough to equal him and no longer looked at him like a god,” he went on, “You two have missed that.”

“Nikandros puts it differently,” said Laurent, who had heard him speak of Damen’s adolescence.

“We became not close,” he admitted, “But that would have changed as we learned how to relate to each other as men. We did not have enough time. You do now.”

“Yes, and an easier job, since we are both used to Laurent surpassing me.”

“When did I surpass you?”

“Why, with your very excellent riding!”

Laurent snorted and nudged his arm. “Auguste and I used to race horses when we were younger, and I always won,” he explained to Damen, “I did not realize until I was nine that he was letting me.”

“Nonsense! It was the quality of your seat and the superiority of your mount: Passelande the swift, fastest of the ponies.”

Damen grinned, as though he recognized the name from the old Veretian legend Laurent had taken it from. “A noble steed deserves a noble name.”

“For short, he called it Clip Clop,” Auguste said.

“I have changed my mind,” said Laurent grandly, “We are no longer brothers. You are now my enemy.”

Auguste laughed, and something in Laurent loosened a little. All right: Auguste was not the Golden Prince of his memories, heroic and all-powerful and too perfect to be real. He was a person, whom Laurent did not quite know anymore, but who still had shared memories with him.

He could live with that.

* * *

Marlas was in the process of becoming fae, but underneath the strangeness, there was still enough earthen foundation to make it feel grounded and real. In the Wild Country itself, things were different. They passed from expanses of giant flowers towering overhead - the sun shining through their petals like glass, bathing them in colored light - to great forests of silver trees, regular and geometric as the pillars of a great hall, without undergoing much of a transition in between. There were multiple paths criss-crossing the landscape of dusty brown or soft green grass, of silver moonlight and crystal stones of many colors. These paths, Laurent was given to understand, shifted about over time, as did the landmarks and locations. Occasionally, Auguste and Damen would stop and perform some ritual, which had to do with feeling the direction of the air and tossing round stones on the ground. They would peer at them mysteriously before choosing the direction of their travels. Everywhere they went, the air was filled with noises: flutterings and rustlings, the calls of strange birds that sounded like nothing Laurent had ever heard before, and the calls of something that sounded exactly like familiar birdsongs but that Laurent could tell - from the hair that rose on his arms, and from the way it made his heart pound - was emphatically _not_ coming from a bird. He shivered.

Damen continued traveling with them, but he did not camp out the nights with them, and sometimes he disappeared for a time to deal with intruders at Marlas or perform a service at the Faerie court. He would pop out of existence like a soap bubble, there and then gone in a blink, and when his duties were done with he would appear beside them again wherever they had gone on to.

“He’s eager to help,” Auguste commented on the second day, staring into the empty air where Damen had just been.

“I’ve already explained that I don’t need you to defend my honor,” Laurent said, continuing down the path.

“So you’ve said.” They walked together for a few steps. “What did you mean, when you told the court that one of the times you fucked didn’t count?”

“Nothing bad.”

Auguste nudged him with his elbow.

“It wasn’t penetrative,” Laurent said.

“Ah, I see. Fucking an Akielon makes you talk like one.”

“Auguste!”

“Next thing I know, you’ll be blushing like a schoolgirl whenever you hear the word ‘cock.’”

“Do you really want to know the details of your younger brother’s sex life?”

“Not details,” Auguste admitted, “But - we are Veretian. This is what we talk about.”

Laurent’s ears reddened, less at the thought of talking about this with his brother than at admitting that he’d never had a friend to discuss these sorts of things with, that it didn’t come naturally to him.

“It was not what I expected,” Laurent tried, “I thought he’d be right down to business, but he was surprisingly sentimental about the whole thing. The foreplay was nice. But the second time, it didn’t get beyond foreplay. It was all soft caresses and neck kisses, and then _someone_ ruined it by coming early.”

Auguste burst out laughing. “You did that?”

“Or Damen did.”

“He absolutely did not. If it had been Damen, you would have said Damen, you have no qualms about embarrassing him.”

Laurent went red, but part of him was glad that his brother could still read him like that to mind it much.

“Well, that’s still less embarrassing than my first time, but now is not the time for that story.”

“What happened to, ‘We are Veretian, this is what we talk about?’”

“That was for sharing your embarrassing secrets, not mine.”

Laurent shoved him and Auguste laughed some more.

“How has it been for you here?” Laurent asked carefully, “I gather the Faerie  Queene has kept you so long for the same reason she collects other mortals.”

“Her fetish for men doomed to die,” Auguste agreed. “It’s … not as bad as it might be. Being trapped here is awful, and that I have no real choice. But she doesn’t care about fidelity, and it’s good to be able to lie with other women freely. That will be an adjustment when we get home.”

“Is it … different?” asked Laurent hesitantly, “To lying with a man?”

“Very different,” Auguste said, “But it’s difficult to tell how much of that is it being different and how much of it is me finding it so because I wanted it and wasn’t able to have it. If you’re interested in finding out, now would be the time to try it.”

“No thank you,” said Laurent, wrinkling his nose, “We had a deal about that.”

“Yes we did, didn’t we? That you would read the books and I would get the heirs?”

“Consider it still in place.”

“Mmm, but ‘reading books’ won’t be exactly what you are doing while I’m thrusting away for my country’s future,” Auguste said, waggling his eyebrows until Laurent shoved him again.

Auguste glanced back down the path towards where Damen had left them.

“I am glad that you had someone who treated you tenderly,” he said, more seriously, “And who cares about you enough to follow us now. But try not to give him your heart. It’s not quite as dangerous to love a mortal thrall as one of the fae themselves, but neither is it safe.”

“No love is safe.”

“Laurent.”

“You do not have to worry,” Laurent said. _Cast-Iron Bitch_ , said the voice in his head. “My heart is well-guarded. But if you feel better, Damen thinks the  Queene will release him in a few months when his seven years are up.”

“And he will only be the prince of an enemy nation, then, that’s much better,” Auguste said dryly.

 

Laurent did not look at Auguste as an unfailable font of truth and wisdom the way he had when he was young, but there was still enough respect there for Laurent to take his advice more seriously than he would have from anyone else trying to tell him what to do. Still, there was a difference between giving a man your heart and enjoying his company, and Laurent did not see any harm in the little thrill that went through him when Damen appeared beside them with one of his guileless smiles, or with enjoying the prospect when Damen walked ahead of him. Damen was handsome, good-natured, and well-made, and somewhere underneath his layers, Laurent was a young man who had never taken a lover before. Auguste’s warning had made him more determined not to let anything happen between them again, but as long as it did not, he felt safe enough not to actively fight the attraction.

Auguste and Damen were always impressing on Laurent the importance of staying on the path, but they left it themselves frequently - to refill water jugs, or get wood for the fire, or answer calls for help.

“Isn’t dangerous,” Laurent asked once, after Damen had responded to shrill, piercing cries to disentangle a tiny, winged creature trapped in a spider’s web, “To come to their aid? I have heard that they sometimes play at helplessness to lure mortals into traps.”

“Sometimes they do,” Damen admitted. His hands had been strong and gentle in the web, delicate around the creature’s wings, and when he finished, it had swept off its hat to him and declared that Damen could call on it for help in his hour of need. “But there is also genuine need, and what is strength for if not to help those who need it?”

“Even if it means you die?”

“It’s better to die with honor than to live without it.”

Laurent was dubious.

“It’s not quite that,” Auguste said, “I might have said so once, but I’ve been separated from my family and my people too long to consider throwing what’s left of my life away lightly, even if it’s on a point of honor. It’s more that - sometimes they are lying to draw you into danger, but others pretend to be in peril to have an excuse to punish those who pass them by, and you are in more danger letting them alone. You cannot know. And if you might die one way or the other, it’s better to die in a manner that you can be proud of having lived.”

“Yes,” Damen said, “That’s much better put.”

And Auguste’s philosophy was much less stubbornly foolish than Damen’s, a more Veretian way of looking at the world, but still …

“There must be a way to tell beforehand which it is,” said Laurent, “Perhaps there are clues you have not seen.”

“Being taken in by a lie does not always mean being foolish,” said Damen, “You must make the best decision with the information that you have, and often it is a matter of chance if you are wrong or not.”

Laurent had been long used to blaming himself when truth turned in a way that he did not see coming.  He decided it was not worth arguing.

Damen was able to illustrate his point some days later, when they heard another cry for help, this time from a beautiful young woman who seemed to be drowning in a pool just off the path. Even Auguste told him to ignore this one, but Damen stepped forward nonetheless and Laurent was about to brave leaving the path to drag him physically back when instead of reaching for her, Damen lifted the trunk of a fallen tree - a young and slender tree, but still what Laurent would have thought unmanageably heavy - and extended it to her from a safe distance instead of giving her his hand. She transformed then into a green-skinned thing, fangs extending from what were once rose-petal lips, and began screaming abuse and hurling splashes of water at him.

“Kind doesn’t have to mean stupid,” he said.

Laurent, who was still thinking of the muscles moving under his tunic as Damen hefted the tree trunk over one shoulder and dragged it ponderously to the water, did not answer.

 

Eventually, they reached a point where Auguste looked into the sky, examined the feel of the air, and declared that they were less than a day’s march from the marketplace.

“Will we be on time?” Laurent asked, as he took several pieces of ash wood out of the pack he’d brought with him and began to arrange them in an unbroken circle around their campsite.

“It’s hard to tell, with the way time ebbs and flows here,” Auguste said, “But if it hasn’t happened already, then we should be.”

“When I left the court this morning, there was still talk of it as an event to come.” Damen looked around the clearing they had chosen. “I think I’ll stay this last night with you, and finish out the final leg of the journey.”

“Do you snore?” Laurent asked, as behind him Auguste began rearranging the sleeprolls to make room for three.

“You should know.”

“I was distracted.”

Auguste shifted things so that he was in the middle, between Damen and Laurent.

And Damen did seem to intend to stay with them. But when the last of the twilight gave way to full dark, he cocked his head and looked away.

“I am being called.”

“Marlas?”

“The Queene. But if I’ll come back if I can, if I finish my business with her quickly.”

“I do not remember you finishing ‘your business’ quickly,” said Laurent.

Damen turned to him a smile that he could not see, and then vanished.

“You can stop looking at me like that,” Laurent said.

“It’s dark,” said Auguste, “You can’t see me looking at you at all.”

“I can feel it. The disapproval comes off of you in waves.”

“I’m not disapproving. Just … concerned.” Auguste paused. “You don’t have to flirt with him, you know.”

“If we have luck, there’s a chance we could be home tomorrow,” Laurent said, “And it won’t be an issue anymore.”

“Tomorrow,” Auguste repeated, wistful and heartfelt, and Laurent looked up into the strange, wheeling stars for a long moment before closing his eyes, resting up for the last leg of a long journey.

* * *

“Nearly seven years I’ve had you,” said the  Queene. Her voice was smug and satisfied, in the manner of a woman who has just gotten precisely what she wanted. “And you are still my favorite.”

She was lying back among the sheets and pillows that glimmered in the silver light the fae fancied even indoors. Her hair, spilled out behind her, had hints of red among the blonde tonight, though by morning it could be orange fire or pure gold, and another night raven black and sewn with star-like pearls, and he still would not perceive her as having undergone any change. She was all-women - and therefore, no woman. She never looked any different, because she always looked exactly like herself.

“I am grateful for the honor,” said Damen, as he pulled on the first of his boots, “But how many other of your lovers could you likewise say that to?”

She smiled at him. Challenging her had once made her angry, but now she liked that he knew her, or part of her, to the extent that mortal man could, and she reveled in the novelty of being understood.

“You should not be among them,” she went on, with an air of petulance that was both artificial and entirely pretty, “Trying to help those other mortals escape me. I should despise you for that.”

“Auguste supplanted me for a time,” said Damen, who had been asking questions about the Veretian prince and put together a timeline, “But you have not favored him for a long while. Why not let his brother take him back, now that you’ve grown tired of him.”

“I have my own purpose for the Golden Prince,” said the Lady, “One his brother may serve later, though his beauty is more the kind to affect you than me.” She reached out and ran a hand over his arm. “Is that why you help them?”

“It would do me good to see at least one mortal prince returned early to his people,” Damen said, for he had learned not to lie to the fae, but also to avoid telling them anything they did not want to hear.

“You speak as though it was some great tragedy, taking you into my realm, indulging you and favoring you as few mortals are ever favored.”

“When you took me in, you did not just steal me from the world,” said Damen, “You stole the world from me. I lost the last years of my father’s life. I have not met my brother’s wife. He has a son I’ve never seen.”

The  Queene leaned forward. “Do you hate me?” she asked, intrigued, as if it were an enticing prospect - as if being hated was another novelty to amuse her.

“Not anymore,” he said honestly.

“Why not?”

“It was like - hating the lightning for striking you, or the wave for dashing your ship. There was no purpose to it.”

“Am I as beautiful and terrible as the tempest and the sea?”

“Yes,” he said, because she was.

“And am I your favorite too?”

“If I ever told you so,” he said, leaning forward and speaking warm and low into her ear, “I would not be your favorite anymore.”

She laughed, surprised and delighted - as light as birdsong, as deep as tolling bells.

“Then come back here and remind me why you are.”

Damen pulled his boots off again and tumbled back into her bed.

 

Later, much later, when he left her rooms and looked at the shape of the stars, trying to judge the time of night and whether it would be worth it to return to Laurent and Auguste as planned, or better to sleep here and join them in the morning, a bright little winged fairy flew into his face.

“I have been waiting while you tarried with the  Queene,” he said, fluttering in place, and Damen recognized the little man he had untangled from the web, “You were hours with her - it may be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Your friends are in terrible danger. You must go to them at once, though even that may not be enough.”

Damen spat a curse as he pulled on the bonds of the world, drawing himself towards Marlas from whence he could return to any place he chose.

“If they are still alive to rescue, this fulfills my debt to you,” he heard the tiny creature cry, as the world dissolved around him.

* * *

Laurent woke to the world tilting and a horrible smell. His shirt was twisted around him, and his feet dangling in the air. That, combined with the sudden waking and the overwhelming stench filling his nostrils, made his head spin precariously.

“”Man-flesh!” cried the creature holding him, brandishing him in the air. As reality imposed himself, Laurent saw that he was being held in the air by a great fist clenched around the collar of his shirt. The skin was gray, and led up a bare arm to a horrible bald face, craggy and rock-like, with bulging eyes and a nose too bulbous to be anything near human. “We’ll be eating well tonight!”

Laurent kicked against the creature’s thigh, managing to twist himself around in the air to see who it was talking to. Another creature like itself, twice as tall as any man and clad only in a loincloth of some kind of ragged, patchy fur was holding a struggling Auguste in the air by both his arms, which it held in one hand behind his back. There were some creatures too strong to be bothered by a ring of ash wood. Trolls were one of them.

“Should we take it back to the others?” said the second one, holding Auguste, “Or keep it for ourselves?”

“Plenty of eating in that one,” said the first, jerking his chin as Laurent spun back around, the fabric untwisting itself, “And if they catch us eating without ‘em, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

 _Huge and strong,_ Laurent remembered, _But slow, and not bright._ He reached to his belt for his bronze dagger and brought it up decisively, swiping at the creature’s hand. It was only a scratch against that thick hide, but it shocked the troll enough to make it drop him. He fell to the ground with a jolt, knocking the wind out of him, but jumped to his feet as his captor was still bending down and ran past the troll holding Auguste, jamming his knife into its foot as he ran. Auguste was dropped too.

“Split up,” Laurent shouted.

He heard his brother crashing through the trees behind him, and the louder, more rumbling sound of the trolls in pursuit.

“I’m not leaving you behind again,” Auguste shouted, keeping close to Laurent’s side, slowing down when Laurent faltered so that his body was always between Laurent and the trolls.

 _That noble idiot’s going to get us both killed,_ Laurent realized with a kind of shock, and something twisted in his stomach at the thought that Auguste could actually be a liability.

But there was no time to argue as they ran, twisting through tree trunks and zigging and zagging around boulders, trying to confuse their pursuers. But trolls did not need to be fast when they could cover several yards with one lumbering step, or agile when they could push trees out of the way and let them spring back behind them. As he dashed through the dark woods, trying not to trip over obstacles he could not see, Laurent could hear the great groaning noises of them getting closer.

There was a loud thud as a club came down between them.

“Keep running!” Auguste shouted, and he whirled round to fight. Laurent ignored him and turned with him.

From the corner of his eye, Laurent could see Auguste spring out of the way of a crashing club, rolling on the ground to come up behind the troll where he slashed at the back of its heels, looking for a weak spot. With his sword flashing in the moonlight, he had the look of one of the heroes of old. Laurent, trusting him to handle himself, ran directly at the other troll, raising his sword as if to charge and then, at the last moment, ducking between it’s legs, causing it to bend over following him.

“Dumb as you look, I see,” Laurent shouted, as it peered at him from between its knees. The troll let out a roar as it righted itself, turning around and smashing at him with its club as though he were a spider darting about on the ground.

“As slow as you’re ugly, too,” Laurent shouted from where he had leapt out of the way. “Still not fast enough-” as the club came down again - “Do you know how ugly you are, or does your face break mirrors?” - and again - “Do you have rocks between your ears?” - and again. Each time he darted away, he shouted an insult. The troll was tiring more slowly than he was, but it was bellowing with rage, letting it’s swings grow wild with frustration. Laurent saw his chance and dashed right at the other troll, ducking around a bloodied ankle and sprinting just far enough ahead to watch as his troll went crashing into the other.

“What was that for?!” it howled, pushing the other troll away.

“Get your hands off me! I’m trying to smash the little one!”

“Well you smashed my foot!”

“You were in my way!”

They were shoving at each other’s shoulders as they argued, and soon they had their clubs back in the air and were swinging them at each other. Auguste caught his signal and slipped away with him, as the tiptoed through the underbrush for a few yards before breaking into a run. They could hear the trolls shouting behind them as they ran, until one of them yelled that he was hungry and the other one bellowed,

“Hey, where’s dinner?”

“They’re getting away.”

And then the trolls were in pursuit again. Laurent felt that his legs would give, his thighs burning as he tried again to cover as much ground as he could. He had bought them some time, but not enough as the trolls soon caught up with them and they were forced again to fight, Laurent ducking out of the way of a grabbing hand as Auguste turned with a battle cry and buried his sword into the calf of the troll nearest him. It let out a yowl of pain, but that didn’t stop it from dropping the tip of it’s club down on the crown of Auguste’s head. It would have been barely a tap to another troll, but it landed with a sickening crunch that stopped Laurent in his tracks. He felt the troll wrap its knobby fingers around him, pinning his arms down, as he watched Auguste fall to the ground. Blood streamed through his golden hair. _Head wounds bleed,_ he reminded himself, _That doesn’t mean that it’s bad._

“Blazes, that hurt,” Auguste’s troll said, plucking the sword out of its leg as if it were a needle, “Little bastard cut deep.”

“You’ll live,” said Laurent’s troll, without sympathy. “Come on, let’s get these buggers back to the others.”

Laurent found himself hoisted into the air again, but was more concerned with watching Auguste as he was being slung over the other troll’s shoulder, searching for signs of life. He was unbearably still for some time, but just as the scent of the trolls (rotten eggs and spoiled meat, under earth and decaying leaves) that filled their nostrils unbearably as they were being carried somehow started to get even stronger, he finally showed signs of stirring. Not long after that, they found themselves in a clearing with a huge but ill-made fire in the center. Two other trolls were gathered around it - one with a deer too young to be fair sport draped over its shoulders, the other noticeably smaller than the others. The one with the deer spoke.

“You’ve had better luck than us, eh? Venison’s all right, but we haven’t had man in a dog’s age.”

“Not enough for all four, though, for all this one’s heavy.” The troll slung Auguste down to the ground, where he moaned and started to sit up. Laurent was unceremoniously plopped beside him.

“ _Are you all right?”_ he hissed, _“Do you know where you are?”_

 _“My head hurts like a wagon rolled over it and we’ve been captured by trolls,”_ Auguste whispered back. He blinked and looked around. “ _Weren’t there two of them before?”_

“That one’s scrawny,” said the smallest troll, gesturing at Laurent, “Hardly any meat on him.”

“He’s just nice and lean. He was running about and fighting like anything - there’s good muscle hiding there.” Laurent’s troll patted his shoulder, like a farmer palming a cow’s rump. “He’ll make right good eating. Better tie them up or kill them quick, though, they gave us no end of trouble.”

“Tie ‘em up,” said the troll with the deer. “Meat’s better when they’re killed fresh.”

The troll that had taken Auguste disappeared into a nearby cave and came back with a coil of rope. Beside him, he felt Auguste tense as the rope was tied around him. Soon Laurent’s hands were bound too, but they left their legs free and that was something. He didn’t see a way out of it yet, but he had no plans to die here.

“We almost didn’t wait for you,” said the troll who brought the deer, “You’ve been an age. But I’m glad we did. Man meat.” He licked his lips with a grotesque tongue.

“How do we wanna cook ‘em?”

“Why cook ‘em at all?” said the first troll. “Let’s eat them raw.”

The other trolls made noises of disgust.

“I like to feel the warm blood running down my throat!”

“That’s how you get worms!” said the smallest troll, “We should put them in a stew. That way there’ll be enough to go around.”

“We don’t have time to cook a stew before dawn!”

Laurent looked up at the night sky. It was harder to judge here, where the stars were strange, but from the position of the moon, Laurent guessed that they were already closer to dawn than the trolls supposed. It had taken a deal of time to catch them in the forest, and before that - he took stock of his body - before that, he thought he had gotten several hours of sleep before they had woken him. It must be early morning already.

“We can prep the stew tonight and eat them tomorrow.”

“But I’m hungry now!”

“I say we roast them on a spit, nice and slow, so they’re all tender and juicy.”

“We don’t have time for that either. We boil ‘em, fry ‘em or char ‘em quick in the fire.”

“Boilin’ them’s easier.”

“I say we fry ‘em!”

From there, the conversation devolved into a fight, the three largest trolls shouting as they shoved each other around and bashed each other with their clubs, the smallest one shoving into the others’ legs and trying to get his voice heard. This must be how the trolls commonly settled their arguments. Beside him, Auguste began to struggle against his bonds.

“I’m working on a plan,” Laurent whispered.

“Me too,” Auguste whispered back.

Laurent gave an experimental tug to his bonds and found no hint of a give. He did not think much of Auguste’s plan.

“When I begin, I need you to follow my lead.”

“Of course.”

“Not ignore me like you did in the forest.”

Auguste turned to him. “If the plan involves me leaving you behind, find a new one.”

“If we’d split up, we could have confused them and both gotten away. Or one of us could have escaped and returned to rescue the other. Now we’re both stuck.”

“I couldn’t take the risk. I have to protect you.”

“How’s that working for you?”

Auguste gave a final wrench and pulled his arm free. “Better than a moment ago. Turn around, let me get at yours.”

“How’d you do that?”

“Tensed up when they were binding me so my muscles would be bigger, then I had some slack when I relaxed.”

As a child, Laurent had looked at Auguste as the font of all adult wisdom, but he didn’t remember Auguste being clever. The feeling that he didn’t really know the man who was more important to him than anyone else in the world crept over him again.

“Well done,” Laurent whispered, “But the point is that I’m not a child. I don’t need your protection. I need your support.”

“You have it. But …” Auguste worked on the knots. “But tell me. If I’d been home, if I’d been there - could I have stopped what happened to you?”

“I -” Laurent started. He stopped. “Can we talk about this when we’re not escaping from trolls?”

“I have to -” Auguste broke off. “They’re stopping.”

Laurent turned his body back around and Auguste dropped beside him with his arms back behind his back.

“Get the pot from the cave - I’ll watch the prisoners while you two get water.”

“You hear that Auguste?” Laurent said loudly, “They’re going to boil us. All that time wasted catching us just to get the meat all tough.”

“It’s a true waste,” Auguste said, catching on, “If I’m to be killed and eaten, I at least want to know that my body went towards providing a decent meal.”

“I wanted to char you,” the smallest troll grumbled.

“A wiser move,” Laurent said, “But they never listen to you, do they? I can already tell that you’re the one they ignore. And now they’re going to waste the best meat you’ve gotten in weeks, just so they don’t have to follow one of your ideas.”

“I say we should char them!” the smallest troll abruptly shouted, “We never have man to eat, and boiling’ll make them tough!”

“We’ve gone over this,” said one of the others in exasperation.

“Can you believe this?” Auguste asked, looking back and forth among the bigger ones. “Opening the argument _again_ just because he didn’t get his way! This one’s like that.” Auguste jerked his chin at Laurent. “Always getting ideas above his head. You have to keep the smaller ones in line, or they’ll walk all over you.”

“Ignore ‘em,” said the one who’d carried Laurent, “They’re just trying to get us to start the fight again.”

“But you won’t fight, will you?” asked Laurent, in his most deadly voice, “You’ll roll over and take it like you always do.”

“Shut up!”

“No, you shut up! I was right the first time!”

“No you shut up!”

“No you!”

“All of you shut up! I still want to eat them raw!”

Then the four of them were on their feet, arguing and shouting over each other and carrying on. They kept looking back at their prisoners, so Laurent and Auguste didn’t dare slip away, but the cover of blows was enough distraction for Auguste to finish with Laurent’s bindings. With any luck, they’d start rolling over each other any minute. But for now they had to sit still while they waited for their doom to be decided.

The stars were dimming, in the east; the sky more gray than black.

“We’re wasting time!” the tallest one suddenly shouted, thrusting himself between two of his battling companions and shoving them apart. “We’ll cut them into quarters, and then everyone cooks his share as he likes it! All right!”

“Right!” said the other trolls.

Laurent’s eyes were on the sky. They were so close.

“An excellent idea,” Laurent said, “But who is to cut us up? Whoever does will have a great advantage in slicing the largest pieces for himself.”

“I will.”

“No, I’ll do it!”

And the four of them were at it again, but that little squabble petered out more quickly than the others, and soon they were resolved to draw lots.

“Right, you then, you want them raw, right?” said one of them, “Before we draw, bite off the little one’s head before he causes anymore problems.”

“Right,” said the troll, with genuine enthusiasm. He reached out and grabbed Laurent by the laces of his jacket.

“No!” cried Auguste, leaping up and showing his hands free - but he was swatted away and soon struggling with the others. Laurent found himself lifted up into the air again, the trolls horrible mouth widening and its jagged teeth getting closer and closer.

Then several things happened very quickly. First, there was a battle-cry from the east, and the trolls turned towards the sound to see a warrior running towards them from over a hill, the gray light Laurent had hoped for unmistakable behind him.

“The cave!” the smallest troll shouted, “Get to the cave, before -”

The warrior took a running leap with his sword raised forward. The first light of dawn flashed behind him, bathing them all in its white light.

There was a ringing clang as Damen brought his sword down on an arm of stone.

 

“Not quite as helpful as I planned on being,” Damen called up at Laurent. He was dangling in the air, unable to untangle his laces from the stone fingers.

“You could try hitting it with your sword again - that seems to be what you’re good for.”

Around them, Laurent could see the other three trolls, caught forever in the moment when the dawn found them exposed: the smallest, turned back towards the cave in the act of running, but not quite close enough to make it; another forever stooped over from wrangling with Auguste on the ground; the last turning in surprise to watch his doom coming. Auguste was standing at Damen’s side, peering up at Laurent.

“Auguste has a head injury,” Laurent said, “Deal with that first.”

“You alright waiting up there?”

The weight of him dangling from his own jacket laces had pulled them tight enough to constrict his breathing; his sleeves were bunched up around his armpits, cutting into his skin and reducing the circulation to his arms.

“Fine,” Laurent said. He grabbed the stone arm of the troll and hoisted himself up to relieve the pressure.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Damen tending to an impatient Auguste with tender touches - sliding his hair out of the way to clean and examine the wound, making Auguste stop looking at Laurent long enough to track Damen’s finger with his eyes. The low-key worry that had been roiling in his stomach softened at the sight of his brother under Damen’s gentle, steady hands.

“I told you I was fine,” Auguste said, getting up.

“He does seem to be,” Damen agreed, and Laurent relaxed a little more.

Standing under him, Damen’ and Auguste’s heads came up to Laurent’s boots.

“Do you think if we tossed you a dagger, you could cut yourself down?” Damen asked.

“Let’s not throw knives at my brother, please,” Auguste said, “Could you reach if we passed a sword up?”

Laurent extended one of his hands down to test. “Possibly, if I let go,” he said, but he did not fancy putting all his weight on the laces again, or the awkward, fiddly work of cutting through laces with a sword.

“Better if one of us comes up to you,” Damen said. He turned to Auguste. “You can stand on my shoulders.”

“That should work,” said Auguste, studying the height.

Damen crouched down and Auguste placed his feet on his shoulders. Auguste was a heavy man - not fat, but tall and well-built, only a little smaller than Damen himself. Damen stood carefully underneath him, in a slow, controlled rise so that he wouldn’t jostle Auguste’s balance. Laurent’s muscles ached looking at him, but he seemed untroubled as an acrobat who did this all the time.

“Here,” said Auguste, handing him a dagger - then he wrapped his arms around Laurent’s hips to take his weight so that Laurent had both hands free to cut the ties.

“I ran here like a wild man when I heard you were in danger,” Damen commented, easily as if he were not supporting the weight of both of them together, “I should have known you’d have it in hand.”

“Yes, we’re in a wonderfully convenient position,” said Laurent, as he sawed through the laces. It occurred to him, as he cut through the last one, that it would have taken them far longer to cut Laurent down if Damen had not appeared when he had.

When he was free, Damen slowly dropped to one knee to lower them down, and Auguste was able to drop Laurent to the ground before jumping down himself.

“Do we have enough time?” Laurent asked. The sun was still low to the horizon.

“I don’t know,” Auguste said, “We’ve lost the path, and I don’t know whether they carried us nearer or farther to where we want to go.”

Laurent hesitated. Who knew what magical objects the trolls had taken from previous victims? There might be something that could help them - seven league boots, or a whistle that could summon a horse from anywhere. They might not be able to reach the market in time without one. But if they stopped to search and found nothing, they would lose time that they did not have.

“You two seek out the path,” said Damen, following the direction of Laurent’s eyes. “I’ll see if there’s anything - anything here.”

He walked towards that terrible cave as Auguste took in the direction of the sun and drew Laurent into the woods.

* * *

It took them an hour to find the path again, this time brown with leaf rot and lined with little white flowers on both sides.

“Thank the fates,” Auguste sighed, sprinting towards it.

“Without you, I’d still be wandering,” Laurent said, as he placed his foot on it again. He did not like this place. He did not like being someplace that he did not understand, with rules he did not know and dangers he could not foresee.

“Without you, I’d be a troll’s breakfast,” said Auguste, as he built a little pyramid of sticks and then tossed a stone at it, examining the way they fell. “That was quite clever, keeping them arguing. This way.”

They moved along the path in the direction Auguste had indicated, as quickly as they could without tiring themselves out.

“We’re not escaping from trolls anymore,” Auguste commented, after a time.

“Auguste.”

“Could I have stopped what happened to you, if I’d been there instead of here?”

“I - I don’t know.” Laurent pulled ahead of him so he would not have to see Auguste’s face. Behind him, he heard him sigh. “I don’t. I was a child when you disappeared. Everything bad that happened, I always thought, ‘This would be different if Auguste was here,’ even when it was something you never could have changed, like - like a fire in a granary, or the death of my favorite pony. I believed for so long that it couldn’t have happened if I still had you, but maybe it would have anyway. Maybe keeping it a secret from you would have just been something more for me to be ashamed of.”

It cost him to admit that - that Auguste was just a person, that his presence would not be a magic spell that fixed everything in his life.

“I have to get you home,” Auguste said, catching up to him, “Laurent I _have_ to. I have to be there from now on, I have to try to make things right.”

“You can’t,” Laurent said flatly, “You can’t change what happened and revenge won’t make it right. What’s done is done.”

“I wasn’t there,” Auguste said, “I should have been. Whether it was to stop it from happening at all or tell you after that you had no reason to be ashamed. You needed me and I wasn’t there. I need to be there now.”

“How do you know I have no reason to be ashamed? You don’t even know what happened.”

“I know because you are my brother,” Auguste said, “And if you have any doubts, remember what you gave Damen to get you here, and that the door’s magic knew it too.”

They continued walking.

“I need you there,” Laurent admitted finally, “I always have. But I also need you to trust me to get _you_ home, even if it means letting me put myself in danger.”

“I trust your judgement,“ Auguste finally said, “You’ve shown yourself to be even more capable than I imagined, and I always knew you would grow into a great man. But seeing you in peril and standing aside tears me apart as much as it would if you were still the child tugging at my sleeve.”

“I have no objection to you coming to my rescue when I need it. But when I have a plan, I need you to step back and let me take my own risks.”

“I’ll try,” said Auguste, “I’ll work on it. But if I do, then you need to tell me what the plan is and why you’re taking the risk.”

“If I can.”

“Good. And also, if I ever need to leave the path and Damen’s not here -”

“I know, I know, stay on it.”

“Yes. But also keep an ear out in case I need you to rescue me.”

Auguste turned just enough to grin at him before they both turned their faces forward and picked up the pace again.

 

Damen joined them late in the day, sweat-covered and dirtstreaked.

“There was nothing of use in the cave,” he said. He had lingered there long, and from the state of his hands, Laurent could see that he had been burying something. From the grim look on his face, he did not need to ask what.

* * *

The sun lay low to the ground again by the time Auguste announced them close to the wide meadow where lay the entrance to the market.

“We are nearly there,” Damen agreed, eyeing the sky.

The three of them began to run, covering the last few miles at as quick of a pace as they could manage, and yet it was dusk by the time they reached the meadow’s edge. In the center, Laurent could see two doorposts and a lintel, standing unsupported in the open grass. Milling about around it were the closing detritus of the fairy market - groups of cat-faced goblins and bearded dwarfs, tall noble elves and small winged sprites, and other creatures less identifiable - those that were not human at all, and those that looked exactly like mortals save for one feature, like the yellow eyes of a lizard or great ram horns curling down around their ears. They had bundles on their backs, or were gathered around hand carts or great colored wagons that could unfold into market stalls, and were calling across to each other or counting out their obscure earnings. No one passed between the doorposts while he watched, appearing in this world with a sudden shimmer as they stepped over the threshold, bare or cloven or booted foot appearing before the rest of them. Yet some were standing so near to it that they could only just have passed through.

At the edge of the grass, Laurent’s run turned into a sprint.

They were so close. They could not be too late, not with the sellers still gathered round, not with home and victory and freedom for Auguste there within reach. They were so close.

He hurtled through the doorway - and his feet came down on the grass that he could see through it, in the same meadow, surrounded by the same trees and the same sounds of market sellers packing up their wares. There was no shimmering and the sensation of momentary disorientation as he was suspended between two worlds before coming down on foreign soil. He had not come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being a day late due to more editing than I thought it needed, but here's the next chapter. Let me know what you think!
> 
> (and thank you to @kittendiamore, who suggested the name "Clip-Clop" for Laurent's pony over the discord chat)


	5. Chapter 4

_It was a cold and frosty day_  
_When from my horse I fell_  
_The Queene of Faerie, she caught me  
_ _In yon green hill to dwell_

Laurent sat on a boulder, staring blankly in front of him. They were still in the meadow. Behind him, he could still hear the clangs of Damen and Auguste fighting. After the rage and despair of the doorway, Auguste had looked at him with all the warmth and compassion he remembered, more concerned for Laurent’s distress than his own continuing entrapment, a face so familiar it could have been plucked from Laurent’s memory of the older brother he used to idolize. Then he had turned to Damen and issued him a hearty challenge. They were still going at it. Auguste must be regaining his former skill; more equal matches take longer.

Laurent needed to be thinking, coming up with a contingency plan for if Auguste’s challenge failed, if all future challenges failed. The need warred in his mind with the frustration and despair of already losing their best hope, keeping his thoughts running in fruitless circles. He would give anything for a horse right now - for the ability to ride until he lost himself, until his mind emptied and clarity returned. But if he’d had a horse, he would have made it here before the market ended and would not be stuck in the first place.

Laurent sat in stillness gazing at nothing until one of the wagons that had been scattered pell-mell around the doorway shifted into a space clear enough for a campground and came within Laurent’s line of sight.

His attention was arrested, so severely that the warring thoughts and emotions in his mind vanished like the snuffing of a candle.

There was a boy sitting in the back of the wagon. He had delicate bones, and brown curls with tiny stars dotting through them like a net of pearls. Laurent was familiar with the large eyes, often widened in an imitation of childish innocence that shouldn’t be the pretense it was, and the mouth that so easily curled into a pout, or a supercilious sneer, or a smile far more knowing than it should be.

What was happening? Had Nicaise, by supreme coincidence, found his own way into Faerie after Laurent and somehow also made it here? Was this some shape-changer or illusion-maker who plucked its current form from the mind of those who watched it? What was this?

The boy, or whatever it was, noticed him staring.

“Avert your eyes, mortal, or I shall pluck them out.” It was Nicaise’s voice, but not his manner of speech. That strange accent in those familiar tones made it only more uncanny.

“You look like someone I know,” Laurent said carefully, hoping it would pass for an apology. “ _Exactly_ like someone I know.”

The boy brightened at once, perking up with clear interest before leaping out of the cart and landing in the grass with a tumbling pass that deposited him at Laurent’s feet.

“You know my double!” the boy said, “Changeling child, left when I was taken.”

“Changeling?”

“Sometimes a fairy woman takes to mothering too well,” the boy explained, “Their own babies, like themselves, are strange beings, and cold. They grow fast, to flourish on their own as their parents’ nurturing wanes. But sometimes a mother lifts her child, cool and perfect, and longs to hold something warm and needy, that depends on her for all. Then she slips into a mortal home and creeps upon the cradle, steals the babe whose warmth she craves, and leaves her own child in its place. It takes the form of what has left. A changeling.”

“So my friend is fairy-born?”

“He likely does not know it. But he would have always felt different and set apart, to other mortals strange: at times far older than his years, in other ways so far behind the the things his agemates know.”

Laurent thought of Nicaise, playing vicious court games with the adult pets, completely unable to make a friend except with Laurent, who was damaged in the same way and sought him out.

“Yes, I suppose he is.” He smiled bitterly. “And you? Do you feel cut off from your strange new world, instinctively longing for the life you should have had?”

“Ha!” The boy scoffed. “As if I’d yearn for mortal life, to work and sleep and shit and die crawling on the dirt to which I am doomed to return. No, I’m building my life in the airy lands, claiming the birthright he should have had, as I have sucked his power down with mother’s milk, while he grew ever earthier at my true mother’s breast.”

The boy waved his hand in the air and blue sparks flew from his fingertips.

“I suppose he has my mother still, in return for his gifts.”

“No,” said Laurent, thinking of Nicaise strolling down the halls alone. “He has not known a parent’s love in far too long.”

 _“Good.”_ The boy’s lip curled in malicious satisfaction, and for the first time, in that moment of cruel pettiness, he looked like Nicaise himself and not like some other creature wearing a Nicaise mask.

“Oh, but you have your fairy mother, do you not?” Laurent said placidly, as if he had not noticed.

“Their attention spans grow no longer because they once fancied cuddling a mortal child,” the boy said, with a weary kind of resentment, “The allure of being needed wears off long before mortal needs end, and when nurturing bores them, they drop us, no matter what our age. Most foundlings end up living half lives, weeping over their abandonment, scrounging for food and scraps of attention, growing thinner and more pale, until their mortality catches them and they die.”

“But not you,” said Laurent, who had heard the boy’s superiority in the same way he heard Nicaise’s.

“Not me.” The boy grinned. “I’ve been running for the market for nearly six years, earning gold and favors, and amusing them at the revels by being bold and brash in theft of food. I am fourteen already.”

He announced it with a pride Nicaise would never share, that stabbed through Laurent like a knife.

“In three or four years, two if I am lucky, I will be old enough to try my chance with the King. He likes a mortal Cupbearer, on the cusp of manhood, brimming with the ethereal beauty of a youth. If I can win his favor, I will be set for years, and I have spent some time learning what he likes.”

The boy tossed his curls and batted his eyelashes.

“And when I am a man in full, I’ll join the Wild Hunt. They ride beneath the eerie moon, tireless and undying, and mortal souls cursed to join them soon long for the release denied. But I know how to slip back here, between the nights they ride, and take my fill of fairy food and fairy laughter to sustain me for the wild chase. Then will I be no longer cursed by mortal doom and mortal end. This foundling shall land on his feet.”

“Very clever.”

“Yes, I am.” The boy smiled. “And what of my counterpart? How came he to your attention, alone and parentless?”

“I don’t know,” Laurent said truthfully, “I’ve never heard anything about his life before. But he made his way to the mortal court.” Not-Nicaise looked a question at him, and Laurent continued. “He caught the eye of someone who prefers his serving boys far younger than seventeen.”

“The mortal court in which you are the Prince.”

There were never many mortals in Faerie at a time; it was not much of a surprise that word of who he was had carried. “Yes.”

“And you allow this?”

Laurent felt his mouth turn down, a souring in his gut. “Until I am twenty-one, I have no rights to allow or disallow anything in my own court. There will be many changes, when we get back.”

“If you get back,” said the boy, echoing Laurent’s thoughts the same way Nicaise sometimes did. He smiled at him.

The boy tilted his head at him. “If you know him this well, you should know his name then.”

“Your true name,” Laurent realized. Names had power with them, and this boy would have been taken far too young to know his.

The boy scowled at him. “Yes.”

“I know what he calls himself now,” Laurent said, cautious of making promises, “I do not know if that is the same name he was given when he was small.”

“Do you have any reason to think he might have changed it?”

“No.”

“And you’ll give it to me.”

“Of course,” Laurent said, “For a price.”

The boy peered shrewdly at him. “They say that you desire a way home,” he said. “I cannot give you that. I do not have it. But would you take a gift, meant for the other me?”

“What kind of gift?”

The boy made the most graceful scramble Laurent had ever seen over the side of the wagon and came out holding something

“A mortal man traded this to me at the market this morning. It was his most valuable possession, but in the end he will regret having what he gained far more than he will its loss.”

He held up an earring, made of a tumble of sapphires suspended from slender silver chains that would dangle fetchingly against the wearers jaw. He placed it in his cupped palms, brought his hands up to his face, and blew on them. He held it out to Laurent.

“This will offer protection to the changeling child,” he said, “Protection, in return for my name, and his.”

Laurent hesitated to take it.

“It will not hurt you!” the boy snapped.

Laurent took the earring. “The changeling child who looks like you goes by the name Nicaise.”

“Nicaise,” the boy said, wonderingly. Then he whispered it again, as if he were testing it out, “Nicaise, Nicaise, Nicaise.”

He grinned. “I can feel it. Yes, that is my name. Luck be with you on your path, mortal, for giving it back to me.”

The other Nicaise sprung back with a cartwheel, disappearing into the back of the wagon, still grinning.

Auguste and Damen found him a short time after that, both looking invigorated despite their recent disappointment, and Auguste with tufts of grass in his hair.

“Not yet,” Auguste said, as if Laurent would not have known that by his face, “But a close match this time. It will not be long before I win the challenge, and secure our passage home.”

Damen did not look like he disagreed. “Do we have a plan for the meantime?”

“Getting home in this way was our best plan,” said Laurent, “Unless you know of a better one, we will be wandering aimlessly around the border searching for a weak spot.”

This did not deter him. “I’ve heard rumors of humans wandering accidentally into the Silver Swamps,” said Damen, “Perhaps we should start there.”

“I’ve heard that too,” said Auguste, “But there are stronger ones coming out of the Murk Wood.”

Then Auguste and Damen were off, swapping stories and comparing rumors.

Laurent did not mention his encounter, or the sapphires that nestled in his pocket.

* * *

“Closer still that time,” Damen said, slapping Auguste on the shoulder.

“Yes,” Auguste agreed, but he was not satisfied. His skill increased apace, as fighting Damen nearly daily gave him practice - but Damen seemed to improve with each bout too, strengthening his already considerable skill with the challenge Auguste was starting to present. He cursed, again, the laziness and despair that had led him to let his training slide away while he was trapped here. He did not doubt that eventually he would build his way back until he equaled this man’s skill - but would it be soon enough?

“You would have had him if you’d taken fuller advantage after that last cross when he stumbled,” said Laurent, from the tree stump where he had been sitting watching their bout. “I can show you a trick with your ankle to bring your opponent off balance.”

“Would that work, though?” Auguste asked, “I thought the conditions were that you be defeated in fair combat. How much trickery would make it unfair?”

“I don’t know,” Damen said, “The only one who’s tried dirty tricks has been your brother, and we’ll never know if it would have worked, because he did not win.”

He flashed Laurent a grin, sure and cocky, but softened with his underlying good nature that showed through in the easiness of his eyes and the flash of his dimple even when he was being arrogant. Whatever his feelings about their relationship, Auguste supposed he could not fault Laurent his choice.

Laurent stood up and strolled over to them casually, as if he intended to pick up the conversation at closer quarters. But Damen tensed, and with good reason, for as soon as Laurent reached them he drew out his sword and flung himself at Damen without warning, forcing him to jump back into a sudden block.

Auguste got out of the way as they warily started circling each other. He had not seen Laurent fight since he was a boy, when he’d had the skills expected of a young prince, but clearly was no prodigy. Now, Laurent moved like quicksilver, sliding out of holds and dodging away from countermoves. Damen, despite his strength and speed, could not seem to touch him.

It was good tactics, using Damen’s weariness from facing Auguste and trying to wear him out further. Auguste found himself exalting at his brother’s stance and poise, occasionally feeling his heart leap at a move he recognized from himself, one that he had taught to Laurent or that Laurent had copied from him. He had a different style from both Auguste and Damen, agile and tricky, but it was clear to see that in the time that Auguste had been away, Laurent had become a master swordsman.

There were other things that made Auguste less proud. Laurent’s tricks were clever, but many of them toed or even crossed the line of honorable combat. He feinted - but he also kicked. He seemed to be on the verge of conceding, then struck below the belt. He retreated until Damen had pushed him nearly up against a tree, then drew back a branch to let it spring at Damen’s face. He kicked rocks into Damen’s path; he went for the eyes. More than once, Auguste found himself on the verge of protest, his tongue up against his teeth with words that were bitten back. He didn’t like this style of fighting - didn’t like that his brother embodied it. It was every nasty stereotype about their people made flesh, dishonest and snake-like. But Laurent was his own man, and Auguste swallowed his words uneasily. He thought about the boy Laurent had been, bright and shining, and wondered what kind of court he had left his brother to that would turn him into this.

Damen, though he bristled with anger at every one of Laurent’s dirtier tricks, did not seem to share Auguste’s uneasiness. Between dirt in his eyes and hurtled objects, he was grinning, invigorated, the way he did whenever Auguste did something particularly clever or came close to winning. Damen liked a true challenge, and it did not seem to matter much whether it was from master swordwork or duplicity.

Their fight ended on the ground, Laurent hooking his foot around Damen’s ankle in the trick he had probably meant to recommend to Auguste, and Damen bringing Laurent down with him, rolling them over until he was on top and had both of Laurent’s hands pinned.

“Alright, let go,” Laurent said.

“Not until you yield.”

Laurent writhed against the hold, straining his wrists. Damen leaned forward and bore more pressure down on them.

_“Yield.”_

“Fine, I yield.”

Damen’s grip slackened, but he did not entirely let Laurent go. They were both breathing heavily after their exertion, and Laurent was looking up at him. He had stopped resisting the moment the word “yield” had passed his lips. Damen’s curls were spilling down across his forehead. Their faces were very close.

Auguste looked at them. “Only three times?”

Damen leapt off Laurent like he had burned him, skin reddening as he awkwardly shuffled away. Laurent sat up calmly and raised an eyebrow at him although daring him to comment further.

Auguste did not.

* * *

They were three weeks out from the disappointment of the market, the Silver Swamp having yielded them nothing but several days of pointless wandering along the border hoping for weak points and a narrow escape from a kelpie when Laurent said,

“I think it’s time we seriously consider trying to open the gate with another gift.”

He had hesitated to bring it up, as he knew Damen would be against it. But Auguste was getting better at swordplay, regaining more of his former skill with each bout, yet Damen kept squeaking through narrow victories that that made Laurent wonder if, having promised not to interfere with the brothers’ attempts to return home, she had instead charmed Damen to make his victories assured. He was tired of waiting for a miracle. But to his surprise, when he did speak it was Auguste and not Damen who turned to him and firmly said, “No.”

“We’re no closer to finding our own way home than we were before -”

“And we still have close to three months before Hunter’s Moon for our luck to change. There’s no need for desperate measures now.”

“Ah, yes, because I shall run mad or wreck my life giving away something that I, foolish mortal, do not truly know the value of,” Laurent said, “I was warned the first time, and that didn’t happen.”

“And if you have a second virginity to give away, that’s none of my business,” Auguste said, “But I _have_ seen people run mad or worse from losing what they offered up, yes. Losing a memory means losing everything you learned from it, every way that it changed you. People come out the other side of that different men entirely. And memories are the least that you can lose. It’s not worth the risk.”

“There are - forces in Vere,” Laurent said, “Every day we linger here, that gives them more time to consolidate their power - makes it less likely that people will rally round the true heir when he does return.”

He expected Auguste to argue with him, protest that their uncle was an honest man and they could trust him to give up the Regency without complaint once they were home, but to his disquiet, Auguste only nodded solemnly.

“Then it will be the best if we face that fight both hale and whole, whenever it happens.”

“The longer we wait, the worse it will get-”

“Are you thinking of your country and your people?” Damen asked, “Or are you that desperate to throw yourself behind a scheme you can control, no matter what the cost, rather than relying on chance and luck for any longer?”

Laurent bristled. “I do not recall inviting you into this discussion about how _we_ are getting home and what we will give up to do it.”

He turned back to Auguste. “We must offer something valuable enough to us that it will be accepted, but that we could do without, without becoming a different person or going mad. I’ve thought about this. I’m going to give up my affinity with horses.”

Auguste smiled sadly. “Laurent, no.”

“It’s more than a hobby for me,” Laurent explained, “Riding is something I enjoy, yes, and am proud of being good at, but it’s also what I turn to for clarity and solace in my worst moments. But I could live without it, if I must without it destroying me.” Especially as he would have his brother back, forever now. He turned to Damen. “You have my offer.”

“You didn’t understand me,” Auguste said, eyes warm, “You have already sacrificed something important to get us here. If we are to sacrifice something else to get back, then it must come from me.” He smiled. “It is my turn,” he said, as if this were a boyhood chore, “my turn” to entertain the toddler Prince of Kempt, our cousin; “my turn” to sit through one of Father’s boring meetings to show the heirs’ support.

“What I am proudest of is the strength and skill of my sword arm, although I let it lapse in my despair,” Auguste said, “If we cannot wait for me to use it to win our passage home in combat, it is only right that I should give that up.”

“You can’t do that,” Laurent said sharply, “Auguste, you are to be the King!”

“And how are you to be the Prince, if you cannot ride? But it is no matter, as it is not your turn. I will still have my voice and mind, to lead my armies with. Eventually, I will learn to wield a sword with my left hand, and until I do, I shall have my younger brother, the best swordsman in Vere, to champion me and wear my standard. Is it not the Crown Prince’s job to protect the King?”

“Absolutely not!” he protested, and they were arguing back and forth and soon shouting, until finally Damen said,

“It would not work, in any case.”

They stared at him.

“I asked around a little, after I had decided to travel with you. Discreetly.”

Auguste and Laurent exchanged a look. Damen went on,

“I can only pluck skills and abilities and memories from the minds of mortals, as the fae do, when I am standing in Marlas, where they placed me and where my influence as their bondman is the highest,” he explained, “I can still take a gift from you here, but it must be something you could physically give me, not something I must use magic to extract.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

“But this was a matter between brothers, and I was not to speak.”

Laurent glared at him.

“Then the matter must be dropped for now?” Auguste asked, looking relieved.

“Unless it has reached a point of desperation where you’re willing to cut off your hand-”

“We wait until closer to the Hunter’s Moon,” Laurent said, petulantly, though he privately resolved that if it did come down to it, Auguste would not be the one to give something up.

* * *

Damen had never understood why the Queene had argued for the right to call Auguste back to her service when she did not seem to intend to use him. For the first several days that they traveled, the long journey to the market and all the long days since them, she had not called on him, although she had sent for Damen many times. But at last, as they were set to enter the Murk Wood, Auguste looked up with that sudden inner attention Damen recognized as a reaction to Their summons, and with a brief farewell to Laurent, he vanished into the air.

“Can we move on, do you think?” Laurent asked, “As we do when we wait for you?”

“She promised that the two of you would not be separated,” Damen said, “He should be able to return to wherever it is that you are. Still, I advise against it. There is no safe water in the wood. We all must fill our casks before we enter.”

Laurent had wisely packed with him a number of full water containers, as well as empty collapsible skins that could be filled at additional need. They had divided them between them, and Auguste still had his on him.

Laurent plopped onto the grass beside the pool, with that careless grace that made him look so insouciant until you knew him well.Then it made him look more so, but you looked on it fondly.

“Ah well. With no fixed destination in mind, I suppose it does not matter if we travel slow.”

Despite his pose, Laurent was not truly relaxed. There was a private tension in him, whether from the absence of his brother or from a restless need to be doing something, even if that brought them no further to real progress. Still, Damen felt his heart lighten at this rare moment alone with Laurent, almost the first since he had joined the brothers in their quest.

It was a warm day, and the sun beat down.

“Help me with this,” Laurent said, falling into command as if they were not both princes.

He offered Damen his back, and Damen obligingly worked the laces free, staring at the strands of blond hair Laurent held aside for him, and the sliver of the thin linen shirt that was revealed as the darker fabric parted ways.

When the jacket was off, Laurent loosened the ties at the collar of his shirt himself and then lent down to scoop a bit of water in his hand and drop it coolingly against the back of his neck. The layers that Laurent habitually wore, stiff and completely covered, had the odd effect of rendering any loosening of strictures more important. Looking at the bit of collarbone revealed by his open shirt felt as significant as seeing another man naked; to watch a droplet of water trail down his skin and disappear beneath his shirt as illicit as foreplay. Laurent noticed his arrested attention and raised an eyebrow at him.

“If you wished to bathe before entering the wood, this would be the time,” Damen said, “It will be long before there is another opportunity.”

“Very thoughtful,” Laurent said, “And will you watch the road for me, or will you be enjoying the show?”

“It would not be a show if we got in together.”

“This is sudden.” Laurent narrowed his eyes. “What brought this on? I had thought you had already gotten what you wanted.”

Laurent’s voice was studiously casual, but beneath the tone, Damen caught the subtle menace of a panther lying in wait. Something had gone wrong. He could not track the part of the conversation where he had misstepped, where Laurent had turned dangerous.

“What we both wanted, I had thought,” Damen said, “But I would not wish to press you, if your interest has waned.”

“My interest.” Laurent’s voice was flat.

“I had thought my own attraction obvious.”

Laurent shot him a look of disdain.

“No one has ever accused me of being a subtle man,” said Damen.

“You’re not. Do you think you have been hiding behind easy flirtation how quick you are to shy away from anything real?” Laurent sneered. “You leap back from my touch as if it’s repulsive whenever things turn with intent.”

“Your brother has been with us!” Damen protested. “Did you think I would try to seduce you in front of him?”

“But now Auguste is not here,” Laurent said, each word precise, like the laying of a trap, “And it has been a long time since a country maid has called you to Marlas, or the Queene to her bed. With the sole barrier removed, why not avail yourself of what you have access to, even if it is used goods. Surely I’d roll over for you as easily as breathing.”

 _It was an invitation,_ Damen wanted to snap back, _You are free to refuse._ But now he understood what was happening, saw where he had gone wrong.

“I should have courted you,” Damen realized, “With all the grace that you deserve, with courtesy that I would be proud to display before your family.”

Laurent looked nonplussed, but Damen barreled on.

“You are right, of course,” Damen said, “I have not shown you the deference due to your station, nor the respect owed to you as a person.”

He felt the enormity of the error he had committed, to assume that because Laurent had shown him favor once, he could proceed as an established lover, shifting from easy friendship to amorous intent with a few mere words whenever the opportunity presented itself. That he had behaved like a man whose suit had been accepted, when in reality that suit had never been made.

“I have not the resources I had before I was taken,” said Damen, thinking mournfully of fine gifts of horses and books, of performers at his command to sing to Laurent of the inner workings of his heart from the greatest poems of his people - all the little ways he once could have shown how valuable Laurent was to him and how well he knew him, “But in the future, I will endeavor to make up for my neglect.”

Laurent leapt to his feet. “I am not some blushing innocent in a fit of pique because I haven’t been given flowers!”

Damen, who indeed had been thinking of the roses growing wild in Marlas and how Laurent had seemed to like them, winced.

“How can you stand there, all of a sudden, pretending the thought of touching me doesn’t disgust you, after all you know of me, after all you’ve learned!”

“What is it that you think I have learned?”

“You were part of the argument with the Faerie Queene. Even you can’t be such a dumb brute to not know what it meant.”

Damen felt like he was stumbling on the sifting sands of the conversation. Whatever the cause of Laurent’s anger with him, it was clear that it came from his own internal struggles as much as Damen’s behavior, and he did not know how to respond to thoughts that he could not see. He tried to bring them back on to ground that he understood.

“That I was the first person you favored with your choice after another man had hurt you? How could I be anything but honored by that?”

“You assume that I was forced,” Laurent said, as though that explained everything, “It was nothing so clearcut. I never fought back. I never sought help or protection. I never even said no. You are spending your time and affection trying to lie with a man who said nothing, who did nothing, who acquiesced to the most vile acts, knowing how wrong it was, who went along without protest again and again and-”

“I have seen you fight,” Damen interrupted, “I’ve fought you myself. I always knew there was a chance physical force was not what was used.”

“And it doesn’t disgust you? The thought of me lying there and just taking it, even inviting it - ”

“You know where I have been for the past seven years. You know what I’ve been doing here. Do you think I do not know what it is to feel another person’s claws in your mind, to find yourself letting them make you do what you find despicable, without being able to explain why you did not resist?”

Laurent looked at him. The vicious self-disgust with which he had been berating Damen had worn itself out, and he looked as lost and vulnerable as a child.

“How could I have let all of that happen if at least part of me did not want it?”

Damen did not ask any questions. Knowing would do him no good, only add shape to his anger, and he had no desire to be able to accurately imagine what had happened and make himself sick with it. Instead, he stepped forward carefully, moving slowly into Laurent’s space, giving him time to object. He reached out and cupped his hand around the back of Laurent’s neck, holding him so tenderly it was as if he was trying to pour into Laurent through his touch the conviction that he was the most precious thing in all the world.

“I have no doubts about any part of you being complicit in whatever happened. But if you doubt yourself, remember that I could not have opened the door for you if that were true.”

“It need not have been that,” Laurent protested, “I may not have been judged innocent, just -” Laurent paused, as if unsure not of what he wanted to say, but how much detail he was willing to give. “Whatever magic controls those decisions may have considered me too young to be responsible.”

Damen went very still. It was very important that he did not stiffen, that the horror not show on his face, lest it be misinterpreted. It was of the greatest importance that he not say the wrong thing right now.

“Are you certain that there is no way,” Damen said, because it was the only thing in his mind, “That you could get this man to Marlas so that I can kill him for you?”

Laurent tipped forward and laughed into his shoulder. “I can’t say it’s the stupidest plan that I’ve ever considered.”

Damen wrapped his arms around Laurent’s shoulders, full of the feeling of this moment. He cherished what was happening now, Laurent accepting his embrace, being allowed to hold him while he worked through whatever he was feeling inside, far more than if the afternoon had gone as he’d imagined and they’d been finding their pleasure together right now. It was the most intimate moment of his life, and he was conscious of the force of it.

Eventually Laurent pulled away.

“You shouldn’t - be like this. You hold me in too high regard. If you knew -”

“I know all of you I need to know,” Damen insisted.

“I chose my brother over you,” Laurent said, as if the words were an assault.

Damen blinked.

“Nikandros asked me to plead for you both,” Laurent said, “That was his price, for teaching me. Initially I tried, but she would not even hear me. She said that she would only grant me the right to bargain for one man, and that I must choose between you. I chose Auguste.”

Damen considered this. “Alright.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I betrayed you, I put someone else before you.”

“I heard.”

“And that’s all you have to say?”

“I have a brother too,” Damen said, “If I had to choose between you -” He could not have said that he would have chosen Kastor, and that made him uncomfortable. “- I do not know what I would do,” he finished instead, which was not exactly the truth either, but closer to it.

Laurent shook his head. “You are ridiculous,” he said, but he said it fondly and he did not pull away from Damen’s arms. Damen looked at him and started to smile.

“I am your first,” he said, as if he had only just realized it, ridiculously pleased with himself.

Laurent looked at him warily. “If you are not careful, you will never be my second.”

“Has anyone ever kissed you the way you deserve to be kissed? Like it was the only thing worth doing in the world?”

“You have-”

“More than I have.”

Laurent shook his head. Damen slowly walked them backwards until Laurent’s back hit against a tree and he was pinned between the bark and Damen’s body. He went willingly. Damen pressed up against him, exploring his mouth like he had always wanted to, like they were fresh-faced youths who dared go no further, but who, in their eagerness, could spend a whole day finding new ways for their lips to touch. They kissed tenderly and with passion, shifting back and forth between them such that it was impossible to tell whether it was a thousand different kisses or one kiss that went on in a thousand different ways.

“I like this,” Damen whispered against his mouth. Laurent was trembling. “Being your first. When you find your way home and we have golden days at Marlas again, private and unhurried,” - this was a fantasy. When the Princes returned home, Laurent would be busy securing his brother’s rule and have no time to tarry in meadows with captive mortals. Still, now, they could dream of it - “We must make a list of all the things you haven’t done.”

He enjoyed this too, making Laurent’s cheeks redden, watching the color bloom.

“I’ve never had my cock-sucked,” said Laurent, challenging as if the words could stop Damen from hearing the shakiness in his voice. He felt fond all over again of the man that he had chosen.

“That is a grave injustice,” he said, “I look forward to rectifying it when we have the chance.”

He could have dropped to his knees right then, but it was the wrong moment - still too raw and vulnerable after all they had discussed. He kissed Laurent again instead, more slowly this time, gently, letting Laurent set the pace and feeling his fingertips light against his jaw as it was his turn to explore.

Eventually, a whoosh in the air signalled Auguste’s return, and Damen pulled away.

Laurent straightened his shoulders and banished the red in his cheeks, regaining his composure as if that could make him look like other than what he was - a young man who had just been pushed up against a tree and kissed. It did not work.

“Damen was just telling me that we should fill the water skins here, as there will be no safe water in the woods,” Laurent said.

“Is that what Damen was doing?” Auguste said, darting his eyes back and forth between them.

Laurent pushed past them, unimpeachable, and walked to the edge of the pool. But Auguste’s amusement had seemed good-natured, so Damen risked a small smile at him before turning to follow.

* * *

There came a night when Laurent was wakened early in his sleep by the vibrations of drumbeats in the ground and strains of wild music in his ear. He sat up, Damen and Auguste rising alongside him.

“A Revel,” Auguste said, with a strange light in his eyes.

“A Dancing Night,” Damen agreed, an identical awe in his voice.

In Laurent’s veins, the distant music was already thrumming, making his heart race and his limbs perk up in anticipation of he knew not what.

“Those are weak spots, are they not?” Laurent asked, “Mortals have become trapped there.”

“They can be,” Auguste admitted, “But it’s easier in than out, and some revels they keep secluded, only for themselves. Still, best to go and see.”

The woods they traveled through were murky and depressing, but now the low mists that lay over the ground seemed to shimmer with reflected light, and the stark black trunks rising out of it made a contrast more eerie than oppressive. The music was coming from deep in the forest, where Laurent could see a great glow rising through the trees.

“I thought it was dangerous to step off the path,” said Laurent.

“Not tonight,” said Auguste, “The revels are a collective truce and safe passage, although that itself is a trap, as the truce ends the second that the dancing stops.”

He pointed to the night sky, where the moon was a white crescent among the stars, though the night before it had borne the shape of a coin cut in half.

“The moon will wax and wane throughout the night,” Auguste said, “The revels are wildest when it shines with its full light, but you must be back at camp before it wanes back to new moon again.”

The three of them stepped over the circle of ash and made for the light.

The revels were being held in a vast open space in the middle of the forest, a space that Laurent was somehow certain had not been there the night before. Music was coming from everywhere, pulsing through the very air and trees, and it was dotted with floating orbs of light that cast different colors over the faces of the revelers. Laurent could see why Damen had called it a “dancing night,” for the majority of the space seemed to be taken up with great circles of dancers, reeling about and weaving in and out of each other, performing acrobatic leaps and twists and tumbles, each circle reflecting a different style that everyone dancing in it somehow seemed to know. But that was not all that was going on. There were great tables of wood and stone scattered throughout the space, overflowing with food and drink, and beings gathered around them eating their fill, catching tumbling grapes from spilled piles and tossing them into each other’s mouths. There were little clusters gathered around individuals who were performing tricks and illusions for the delight of all, before they would bow to the applause and switch places with an observer who would take their turn entertaining the company. As in any celebration, there were friends and enemies ducking heads to talk. And at the edge of the party, a woman with hair made of flames was being held up against a tree by a man with donkey’s ears who was thrusting up into her ruched skirts, her little cries of ecstasy falling in time with the music and becoming part of it. Laurent stared. He had seen worse (the folds of her dress tumbling over her raised legs covered what was most explicit), but the genders of the participants shocked him as if he had never watched two people having sex before.

Beside him, Damen and Auguste were engaged in more productive work peering around the edges of the gathering, looking for weaknesses.

“No use,” said Damen, “There will be other rings within the human world, and others that stride the line between them, but this one is entirely in Faerie.”

Auguste followed Laurent’s gaze.

“It is not that different from home, when you think about it properly,” said Auguste.

“It shouldn’t be,” Laurent said, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being grotesquely daring, even lewd, and that outraged onlookers would soon start calling for guards to drag the shameless couple apart. No one did.

Damen followed what they were looking at.

“The taste for performing what should be private between lovers as a public spectacle is something Vere shares with Faerie,” he said, disapprovingly, “Like your half-truths, and comfort with deception.”

“You are one to talk,” said Laurent, “As if Akielos does not share with them an obsession with rules, or a rigid hierarchy that has soldiers groveling like beggars before their kings. You even used to keep and capture slaves, like they do.”

“Akielos hasn’t had slavery in almost two hundred years!” Damen protested. “Not since King Androcydes was taken by the fae when he was Crown Prince, and returned swearing that no one in his kingdom would anymore be bound and shackled as he was. And you cannot stand there, Prince of the blood, and tell me that Vere has no class system.”

“Not as strict as Akielos’s,” Laurent argued. “The point stands.”

“I didn’t know that that was why Akielos ended slavery,” said Auguste, “How odd, that you should share the same fate as your ancestor.”

“Counting princes who were not first in line for the throne, I am the fourth of my line to be taken,” Damen said, shrugging. “She seems to have a certain fondness for our family.”

If Damen had inherited his arms and shoulders as well as his title, Laurent could not blame her.

“But she always lets us go when our time is up.”

“And you have not started carrying cold iron in your pockets?” Laurent asked.

“Our swords and daggers are cold iron, and we rarely leave the palace without them. That should be protection enough. But we were hunting boar, and I had thrown my spear. I had nothing else on me when my horse startled, and I fell. She caught me, somehow, and brought me here.”

“I suppose there is no reason to stay,” Auguste said, a hint of wistfulness in his voice as his eyes drifted back to the woman being enthusiastically fucked against the bark, “We should get some sleep for the morning.”

“Why?” Damen asked, “We have no fixed destination, or arrival goal. And we would find it hard to sleep with the music drifting into our ears.”

Laurent, who felt it moving through him, making him itch to run and leap, to catch a wild horse and go racing along a creek bed, pounding up a splash, agreed.

“Autumn is coming. This may be both of our last times to enjoy one before home and freedom come.” Damen sounded wistful too, now, though his eyes were on the dancers. He glanced back at the sporting couple, and away again. “I will take care of Laurent, if you wish to … indulge in what you may not be allowed at home.”

Auguste burst out laughing. “I’m sure you will!” He turned to Laurent. “You remember what I told you?”

“Of course.”

“Then I suppose there is no harm in it.” He kissed Laurent on the forehead, then pulled Damen into a hug - things that would have surprised Laurent if not for the emotions running high under the influence of the song. “You two have fun. I’m going to go enjoy myself.”

Auguste walked off in one direction, and, eyes bright, Damen took his hand and eagerly pulled him in another.

“We have to be more careful here,” said Damen, as he drew him to a table piled high with cheese and bread and bright fruits of all seasons - oranges and apples, pomegranates and strawberries, grapes and plums and kumquats and peaches. Damen caught up a golden plate from the pile at the end and began adding things to it, “The music makes it hard for you to think. Don’t take any food that’s not from my hand.”

Laurent immediately ducked his head and snatched a morsel of white cheese from Damen’s fingers with his mouth. He knew that that was not what Damen meant, and he heard Damen’s breath catch as Laurent’s lips brushed his fingers, as Laurent gazed up into his face. Laurent did not feel like the music was making it harder for him to think. He felt like his mind was soaring, thoughts as invigorated as his body by the beat pulsing through him, leaping from impulse to decision until he was standing here aping the manners of a pet for no other reason than because he wanted to, to enjoy the heat in Damen’s eyes. He had no regrets.

“Get me some wine too,” Laurent said, playful and demanding. He did not usually drink, but this felt like the night for it, wild and free.

“No wine,” Damen said, “Their kind is stronger, sweeter. It has an effect on the body that -”

Damen stopped.

“Beyond the circles of the dancers is another place where people go to find their pleasure, all muddled together,” Damen said, amusing Laurent with the stammering discomfort with which he was trying to describe an orgy, “The wine serves to give energy and enthusiasm for - that.”

“Is that where Auguste has gone?”

“Most likely. We will be in no danger of seeing or overhearing him if we stick to the circles.”

Laurent glanced at the cups of wine lined along the table, glowing golden-white with the reflections of the floating lights. “That seems more like the traditions of Vask than the entertainments of Vere. They have coupling fires, so that the fathers are not known and all children belong to the tribe.”

“Perhaps all nations have borrowed something from our proximity to the Wild Lands.”

Laurent shrugged. “Have you ever drunk the wine and gone off to … indulge?”

“Yes.”

“Many times?”

“Yes.”

“But not tonight?”

They were already standing close but Damen took a step closer. “You know why not tonight.”

Laurent did. Because Damen was with Laurent now, because he preferred being with him to all the exquisite pleasures Faerie could provide.

“Water, then.”

Damen fetched him a cup, but Laurent did not reach for it. He waited, hands clasped behind his back, until Damen realized what he intended and, eyes wide, brought the cup to Laurent’s lips and carefully tilted it up. He kept his eyes locked on Damen the entire time that he drank.

It was cool water that spilled across his tongue, but he felt like he was already drunk - not drunk and helpless, as when wine had been forced on him until his head was fuzzy and his limbs did not obey, but powerful and drunk on the headiness of it, on the effect he could have on Damen, on his power over this man.

“I thought you were going to take me dancing,” Laurent said, when he had drunk his fill and Damen had lowered the cup, swallowing more heavily than Laurent did.

“Can you follow a lead?” Damen asked, recovered enough to raise an eyebrow in challenge.

Laurent could feel it buzzing in him, the wild exhilaration and the urge to move. “Can you?” he asked.

Then Laurent darted away, skirting around the edge of tables and running through gaps in the crowd, luxuriating in the delight of making Damen chase him until he chose a circle that he wanted to join.

* * *

The elves made their wine sweet as sin and strong as desire; it cloyed like syrup on the tongue but quenched thirst like water from the well. One small glass could make a dour man sing and dance on tables. Auguste downed two large ones in quick succession before making his way down to the lower circle where bodies moved together in the light of the stars. The music was so all-encompassing that he got quite close before he heard them - high, musical sighs of pleasure far lovelier than any theatrical sounds the Pets designed to please their masters’ ears, and lovelier still for being real. Auguste was human, and therefore flawed, and when he reached the coupling circle, most eyes looked up briefly only to pass over him with indifference.

But mortal impermanence held a fascination for a certain kind of fae, and it wasn’t long before a brown-skinned woman with pointed ears gestured for him to join her. A previous lover had divested her of most of her dress, and she was covered only in a loose court robe, barely closed. Her hair was down.

He put his hand to her face, enjoying the feel of her skin - smooth as porcelain, soft as silk - as he pulled her into a kiss.

“I can taste death on your lips,” she breathed in excitement, her voice a thrill of arousal.

Auguste had his misgivings about what Laurent was doing with Damen, but for this he could never be anything but profoundly grateful: that Damen was mortal, like them, that he kept Laurent’s attention away from the fae, that Laurent would never know what it was to have his mortality fetishized, or learn the precise way it made you hate yourself to hear something like that, and be disgusted, and lay down with her anyway.

Auguste slid his hands beneath her robe.

* * *

Fae dancing seemed to fit the mood that the night had put Laurent in - teasing and lively. There was a lot of twisting about each other, one partner in pursuit and the other dashing away, but not too far, always spinning to look over the shoulder to make sure they were still being chased, hands stretched out to touch but slipping away just before they let themselves be caught. Laurent, agile and quick, took to it like a natural, sliding out of Damen’s grasp like he slipped from attacks when they fought, but never getting far enough away to feel truly out of reach. They spun in rhythm as Damen chased him around the circle, Laurent’s feet finding the strange steps more quickly than Damen’s had when he first learned, and learning where to move by darting away from a touch whenever Damen lunged for him. Then the circle turned, and it was Damen’s turn to run while Laurent chased, keeping up the game of keep-away - though Damen, certain of being able to break a hold, let himself be caught more often than Laurent did, and enjoyed the sensation of Laurent’s hands lingering longer than the dance called for whenever they actually managed to reach his arms or his chest.

The night, like all Dancing Nights, imbued them with strange energy from the music and the lights, and it was several dances before they tired enough to make their way back to the tables for more refreshment. There, Damen made up a plate like he had before, wondering if Laurent was going to play his game of taking food from his hand again. Laurent, however, seemed to fancy a different game, for he snatched a grape from the plate and held it up to Damen’s face.

“You must be as hungry as I am, after all that.” He gave Damen a pointed look that sent a shiver through him that he did not want to examine.

His hands were full holding the plate and a fresh cup of water he had fetched for Laurent. Slowly, he leaned forward and took the grape from his hand, feeling his lips brush against the tips of his fingers, warm from exertion. Immediately, Laurent reached down and grabbed a morsel of bread, which he offered as the sweet juice and tender flesh was still bursting across his tongue. Cheeks heating, Damen took that too.

He was chewing it when a burst of raucous laughter, uncouth among the noises of joy-filled delight from all around them, came from behind the table. Damen turned around.

A group of what passed here for ruffians - delicate, ethereal looking men and women without the goat’s legs or boar’s heads that would warn others of their bestial natures, had formed a jostling circle around some cruel entertainment. They had a woman in the middle of it. He recognized her.

Damen pushed the water glass into Laurent’s hand. “Wait here,” he said, as he shouldered through the crowd.

Closer, he could see that they’d forced her to hop on one leg as they piled things into her hands - a careening tower of plates and goblets that she jerked wildly as she tried not to jostle, her eyes wide and desperate among their jeers and laughter.

“One more,” wheezed out a raven-haired man, handsome and clean and the lord who’d brought her here only to abandon, “Here you go, girl.”

He tossed a glass orb on the top of her pile and the whole thing toppled. There were great guffaws as she dropped to her knees among the fallen debris, begging wild-eyed.

“Another chance,” she whispered, “Please, another chance. I can do it. I could do anything. Only - give me another chance.”

She walked on her knees to the man who had taken her, pleading. He pushed her away with his boot in disgust.

“What’s going on?” Laurent whispered in his ear. He had not stayed by the table, as instructed.

“She’s mortal,” Damen explained in an undertone, hoping she could not hear him, “She stayed longer than seven years, and cannot go home. But now, her lover no longer wants her.”

She’d been in and around the Court since Damen got there, at first still exulting in the joy of her love and the wild strangeness of the place he’d brought her, then sinking into a half-disbelieving struggle to keep her lord’s attention, and finally brought to this, where there was nothing beneath her. He had heard the others call her Marguerite.

“Here, I’ve a task for you girl,” called another man. He bore a superficial resemblance to Laurent - perhaps more beautiful, if Damen would admit it - but there was nothing behind his clear blue eyes. He spread his hands apart, and was holding a burning brand between them that had not been there before.

“Hold this to your breast,” he said, and the woman beside him let out a cruel laugh. “Keep it there, and don’t scream. Let’s see if you can do that.”

“I can’t scar,” Marguerite said, “I can’t earn my keep if I’m scarred.”

This amused the crowd still further.

“It won’t scar you,” the man said, smiling. Damen hated that bastard. “But it will hurt.”

“And you’ll give me food?”

He nodded.

“Say it, all at once.”

“Hold this to your breast without screaming until I count ten, and for tonight I’ll give you all the food that you desire.”

Marguerite reached for it. Damen drew forward to stop her, but she darted her hand back before he reached her.

“You’ll count in time with the music,” she said, for she had been beaten down, but she had not survived this long without protection by being stupid. The man’s face twisted into a frown, as if she had spoiled his plan, but he sighed.

“Very well.”

“No, here,” Damen interrupted, striding forward and thrusting his full plate into her hands, “Take it.”

Marguerite nodded and shifted towards him, reaching for his belt.

“No, I - a song. Pay me with a song.”

She looked up at him in suspicion, and then quickly, as if to hurry through it before he could change his mind, she sang a little nursery ditty and snatched up the plate, escaping from the circle with her treasure.

A chorus of groans went up from the gathered company.

“What do you think you’re about, spoiling our fun?” said the blond man.

Damen frowned. “Have not great Lords and Ladies like yourselves better things to do for fun than torment someone helpless?”

It was less a question than a judgement, but he could not help it. The man got up and walked towards the nearest circle of dancers.

“I look forward to the day when it is you who are humiliated and begging for scraps,” he said, as he passed Damen by, “I will remember this night, and make what she endures look like a mother’s kindness.”

Damen scoffed at his back.

Laurent was watching all of this with an impenetrable face. “Why can she not go home any longer?” he asked.

“She has lived on Faerie food too long,” Damen explained, “Up to seven years, you can still go back, but even one day after that, your body will reject mortal food and it will no longer nourish you. If she returned, she would starve, as she is slowly starving here.”

He glared in the direction of the crowd dispersing, with particular disgust at Marguerite’s lover, whose truename Damen did not know but who sometimes called himself Allerue. He had kept her for eight years before she bored him, and then dropped all responsibility as if he had not wrecked her life by bidding her stay.

“You would do better not to make enemies of ones like them,” said a voice from behind him. Damen turned to see his friend with the cat ears coming up from the refreshment table. The one who had told him about Laurent’s business with the Queene.

“It would take far more than that to offend anyone enough to move against me while I have the Queene’s favor,” said Damen.

“While you have it.” She took a sip from the wine glass in her hand.

“When I no longer have it, I’ll be back home and away from here.”

“She has promised you this?”

“No,” Damen admitted, “But the Queene is not like -” he hesitated. It would not do to offer a direct insult, even to men like that. “-some of the others. She does not keep us.”

“She has.”

“Not in a long time,” Damen said, thinking of the past paramours he had heard of, and the fate that became of each of them.

Laurent stepped forward. “When was the last time she did hold on to one of her lovers longer than seven years?” His voice held no particular significance, as if he were inquiring about the weather.

She turned to him. “About five hundred years ago.”

“There, you see?” Damen smiled at Laurent in reassurance.“There is nothing to worry about.”

The lady with the cat ears sighed. “I forget that mortals think that that is a long time.” She looked between the two of them with a kind of sympathetic amusement, and then drifted back to the dancing.

Damen stared after her, not knowing what to say.

“Come,” Laurent said. His face was still unreadable, as it had been throughout the whole encounter. Damen longed to know what he was thought of the fairies cruelty, of Marguerite, of his gentler acquaintance and her last words to him. He longed to know what he was thinking now. He did not ask.

Laurent led him to join the wildest circle, where the dancing was almost acrobatic in its leaps and spins and there was no room for talk or even thought in the mad effort to keep up. They made it through only two dances before thirst and hunger drove them back to the banquet table and they ate their fill without interruption, too famished even for flirting.

“Shall we dance more while the moon is high?” Damen asked when the last morsel was gone. It was nearly full now, the revels at their height, and the music set his heart pounding in his ears.

“No,” Laurent said, surprising him, but this was to be Laurent’s only revel and it was only right to let him lead, “There is more I want to do tonight.”

Laurent led him past tables and dancing circles without joining any of them, his hips unconsciously swaying to the beat of the song bursting all around them. The moon bathed Laurent in its light, making his pale skin seem to glow, and Damen took his hand as one beguiled. At the edge of the clearing, Laurent did not stop but continued leading him through the trees, the mist shining around their feet as they walked. Soon they were back at the edge of the path where they had left their camp, the bedrolls still in disarray from when they had risen and walked off.

Now at the peak of celebration, the music was no longer distant but surging all around them even here. He could still feel it thrumming through his body, and could see from Laurent’s tense excitement that Laurent felt it too.

“Show me how it will be,” he said, stepping closer, “When we are back at Marlas, and you have time to court me properly.”

* * *

“Leaving so soon?”

Auguste turned to find his latest paramour pulled away from the woman she had replaced him with, reclining in satisfaction as she watched him get dressed.

“The night is three-quarters gone,” Auguste said, glancing up at the moon which was halved like a split coin again. It bathed them with a silver glow, made stark with the shadows growing around them as it waned.

“But you plan to be rescued, do you not?” she asked, lips curling into a teasing half-smile, “If this could be your last night, surely you will want to enjoy it to the fullest?”

“I have,” said Auguste, for it had been a sweet night, but eventually he grew weary of perfect beauty with no feeling behind it. Best to leave his memories unsullied by pleasure growing stale.

“Until next time, then.” She did not seem concerned that he would be returned home before the next dancing night.

Auguste bowed his farewell and returned to the glowing lights of the music and the dancing. He stood on the edge for a long time, watching the dancers in the circles laughing and leaping around each other, twirling and stomping and dashing up and down. His body stirred in a different way, and he found himself longing to join them, but …

But he also desired sleep - natural, human sleep, an escape from the impossible allure of Faerie and everything that it embodied. He thought - looking at the dancers, with the taste of other pleasures still on his tongue - that if they did manage to get home as he so desperately longed for, that he would miss this. He hated this place, and yet he would miss it, like an ache in his tooth or a thorn in his side.

He hated that too.

Auguste turned away from the dancing circles where Laurent and Damen probably still were somewhere, making the most of their night, and headed back to camp. He had gone perhaps halfway through the trees when he came across a fallen trunk, and a woman sitting on it. She had her back to him, but he could tell that she was human from the way the mist was frizzing out the ends of her hair. There were only so many mortals in Faerie at any given time, and while there were some he had managed to avoid encountering, he was pretty sure he knew this one even before he came around the side of her tree where he was able to see her face. An empty plate, dotted with drops of juice and crumbs, was balanced on her lap and he wondered, with a sick twist to his stomach, what she must have had to do to win a whole plate of food.

He reached into his pocket and found a golden plum that he’d snatched away from one of the tables earlier in the night. “Catch as catch can,” he said, as he always did when he saw Marguerite, and he tossed it to her, making the gift a challenge so that she would not owe him for it.

She looked up at him in time to catch it easily in both hands. “You never seem to throw it very wide,” she commented.

“Perhaps you are just exceedingly skilled at catching.”

“I have already eaten today.” She sighed, examining the fruit in her hands.

“Save it for tomorrow,” Auguste suggested.

“I can’t,” she said, “Banquet food always turns to dust in the morning.”

Marguerite brought the plum to her lips, inhaling the wild-sweet odor of it before she brought her teeth to the skin and slowly bit into the flesh. Auguste was familiar with fairy fruit - with the flavor that burst over you and thrummed inside you, with the juice that dripped down your lips.

Marguerite’s face contorted with ecstasy. She had been taken for her beauty, and if Auguste looked carefully he could still see it but -

But he had been with Faerie women for too long. She had rich brown hair, so dark it was almost black, but all he could see was the way it wasn’t sleek and shiny the way theirs was. Her eyes were the lovely green-hazel that happened when one parent’s were light and the other’s dark, but all he saw were the lines at their edges just starting to deepen enough to be visible when she wasn’t smiling. Her skin had turned golden with the summer sun, but all he could see were the pores in it, and the way the color wasn’t quite even across her cheekbones. She looked mortal, flawed and fading, the death that would come for them all in the end creeping in around her edges. She disgusted him.

She was younger than he was.

Auguste looked away, and his eyes fell on a wrapped bundle sitting by her side.

“Why do you have that, if you can’t keep it?” he asked. She lowered the fruit from her mouth and followed his eyes.

“It’s my lord’s favorite,” she explained, parting the fabric to show him a citron she had set aside, “I thought, perhaps, if he should happen to pass by …” She trailed off.

“What, you plan to win him back with little gifts?” Auguste asked harshly, “Dazzle his eyes away from his flawless country women and all those sweet mortal virgins he can beguile with a song? He never really loved you at all, and you think he’s going to now that you’re -”

“What else am I to do?” she snapped at him, “Roll over and die? Go home and waste away? I’m open to ideas, your highness.”

Auguste’s mouth snapped shut. What was he doing, being hard and cruel to this woman, abandoned and desperate?

“I’m sorry,” he said, letting his weight fall onto the trunk beside her, “I shouldn’t have - of course you must try whatever you can.”

“He saw something in me once,” she said, more as if convincing herself than him.

“It was a cruel, selfish thing he did, keeping you too long and then abandoning you,” Auguste said, “It would take more than a gift of fruit to make him less careless and cruel. That’s - that’s what I meant.”

“It is not what you said,” she pointed out, “But perhaps I would not be any better off if he had sent me away when he had the chance. They wouldn’t have taken me back home, after sleeping with a man.”

“The fae don’t count,” said Auguste, “They only make children when they intend to.”

“They shouldn’t count,” said Marguerite, “But they do.”

He’d known from her name that Marguerite was Veretian, but this was the first he’d appreciated that if they had not both been taken, she would have been his subject, under his protection.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, not sure if it was his words or his people he was apologizing for, “I have been worried, and I was taking it out on you. My brother made a deal -”

“Yes, I heard. A deal to get you home, where you can still go, where there are people waiting for you, where someone cared enough to follow after you.”

“And that, if we fail, he would be trapped here with me. Would you wish that, on someone you loved?”

“I don’t know,” she said, as if surprised, “I think … I think perhaps I would, if only to have the company.” She looked at him with a kind of morbid desperation, and Auguste saw for the first time the yawning loneliness of her survival. “Is that awful? I think that being here has made me awful.”

She turned the citron over in her hands like a worry stone.

“Have you ever tried -” He cut himself off at a look from her.

“I have tried everything. But go on. Perhaps you’ve thought of something new.”

“I only wondered, just now, if perhaps dependence on their food might be considered a sickness,” he said, “One that their magic could cure, like it heals other ills.”

She turned her head towards him. “I had not thought of that, your highness.”

He got up to leave.

“You are a proud man, are you not?” she called after him.

He looked at her.

“Oh come now, you are royalty.” She smirked at him. “The rumor is that you’ve been trying to win your way home from the Queene’s Akielon, by defeating him in combat. He’s bigger than you.”

“Not by much,” Auguste protested.

“Not much. But he is. As a boy, when you were still growing, were you taught strategies to defeat an opponent larger than yourself?”

Auguste nodded.

“Don’t be too proud to use them.”

Auguste had assumed that their campsite would be empty at this time of night. It was Laurent’s first revel, and he thought that they would stay there as long as it was safe. But as he approached the place where they had left their bedding, he heard Damen’s voice say,

“You’re so warm.”

Auguste froze. He could not see them yet through the trees, but he was close enough that it was as if Damen had spoken from the next room. His voice was low and intimate as though speaking to someone lying next to him, perhaps even in his arms. There were, thank the gods, no squelches or rhythmic thumping noises, but Damen’s voice was wrecked as though he had already reached his ecstacy at least once this night. Auguste would guess that he had nearly stumbled upon his brother and his lover between rounds.

“That’s not what people usually say about me,” Laurent answered, amused but also open, not detached the way he usually held himself. “I’m usually told that I am cold. Frigid.”

“You’re not. _They’re_ cold. Beautiful and cold. You can look like them sometimes, aloof and immovable. But to touch you - when you let someone touch you - you feel _human_.” Damen’s voice broke on the last word, defenseless and overwrought. “I want to bury myself in your warmth and never let go.”

“You can’t - don’t talk like that.” Laurent’s voice had become emotional now to. “When you say things like that, I can’t think.”

“Don’t think,” said Damen, and the sudden realization that he was about to overhear more than lovers’ talk broke Auguste out of his frozen stupor. He turned around and walked carefully back towards the revel, breaking into a run when he thought he was far enough that they would not hear his footsteps, and not stopping until the encompassing music was loud enough to drown out all that might be happening behind them. He leaned forward against a tree.

Those had not been the words of two people enjoying each other’s bodies.

He stood there a long time, thinking. About this place, how sweet and poisonous it was, how it seeped into anyone who lingered here too long and twisted them, sickened them. Sickened him.

Then he threw himself into one of the circles, and lost his thoughts to the dancing.

* * *

Auguste was already awake and watching them when Damen and Laurent began to stir. They had combined their blankets and slept tangled together in one bedroll, Laurent nestled in Damen’s arms.

“Good morning,” Auguste said, as Laurent blearily opened his eyes.

Laurent clutched the blanket up over his bare chest. “Good morning,” he said, “Did you get any sleep?”

“Enough,” he said. Auguste had stumbled back into the campsite exhausted just before the last sliver of moon disappeared and fallen into a deep sleep for the few hours of darkness before dawn had woken him. “You’ve lingered.”

“You’re wearing your armor,” Damen commented, sitting up. “Am I to be challenged before breakfast?”

“Perhaps I will fight better hungry.”

Damen groaned. “All right. Give me a few minutes.”

He rose completely unembarrassed, as was the Akielon way, and walked naked into the trees to find a private spot to piss. The tips of Laurent’s cheeks were pink.

“Did you have a good night?” he asked.

“I did. But not, perhaps, as good as yours.”

“We have been doing the same thing.”

“Not quite the same thing.” Auguste smiled wryly.

Laurent glanced back towards where Damen had vanished.

“No, not quite.” He turned back to Auguste and raised an eyebrow in a challenge. “Perhaps I did enjoy myself more.”

He looked so young in the morning light, with his hair mussed and wisps of sleep still clinging to his eyes. Auguste hoped that he had enjoyed something better than the passionate, impersonal encounters Auguste had known, and was glad of it, though the gladness broke his heart.

When Damen came back and began pulling on his clothes, Auguste turned his back to give him the privacy he didn’t need, knowing that Laurent would also use it to get dressed unembarrassed. When the sounds of shuffling and rustling fabric stopped, he turned back in time to see Damen just finishing doing up the laces on the back of Laurent’s jacket for him, an act of casual intimacy he was almost as embarrassed to witness as if his brother had still been nude.

“We should get out of the woods first, if we want to find a clear space for battle,” Damen said, “We should be only an hour away from being all the way through by now.”

Auguste was impatient, but this was sensible, so they packed up their things and walked on. They made it out in less than an hour with the pace he was setting, but the sunlit land past the edge of the trees was hilly and uneven, and it was closer to noon than dawn by the time they found a clear, flat area wide enough for fighting at the bottom of a granite cliff just to the side of the path. Several hours of the morning were gone.

“Should we catch our breath before we begin?” Damen asked, when Auguste stopped suddenly.

“I’m ready to go if you are,” Auguste said, and Damen shrugged as shining silver mail materialized around him.

They stepped onto the grass and saluted each other. A butterfly fluttered past his ear. This could not go on. As Auguste raised his sword, he felt a burning certainty that he had not known since he first went into the hill and he found what he had not prepared for wash over him. He would not allow this to be anything other than their last day. One way or another, they were going home.

The first blow was exchanged, all the frustration and fury that had been burning in him for weeks pouring into his strike, increasing his already notable strength and speed to a fever pitch. Damen was a strong fighter, the strongest Auguste had known, but he did not want it as badly as Auguste did. He did not want to keep them there at all. As he fell into the motions - block, attack, push forward, dance away - he felt it was not Damen himself he was striking at. It was the Faerie Queene, implacable and irresistable, securing his desire even as she held him trapped; it was the rules he did not know, wrapping around him and strangling him, keeping him caged; it was the place itself, magical and desirable and dangerous and unhealthy; it was the way that it had changed him, every part of himself that he did not like, everything he did not want to bring back home with him. Auguste struck at the years of Laurent’s childhood he did not get to see, at the death of his father he never witnessed, at the need of his country that he could not answer, the army he wasn’t there to lead and the people he wasn’t there to rule. And Damen matched him, strength for strength and speed for speed, the block on whom he could unleash all his hurt and rage and fury without breaking until -

Until Auguste was finally too fast for him, striking high to bring up his guard, letting him start to slide into a counterstrike, but using the motion to glance his sword away and bringing it down to fall, full strength on Damen’s unprotected side.

He had barely felt the impact of his blade against the mail when Damen brought his own sword down on top of Auguste’s, knocking it away from his body, and then twisting his blade around and underneath until he was pulling up beneath Auguste’s blade and wrenching it out of his hands.

He pointed the tip of his sword at Auguste’s neck.

“The field is mine,” he said.

“No! I drew first blood, doesn’t that count for anything?”

Damen tilted his head as though examining, trying to see if he could open the door. He shook his head.

“I am sorry, my friend.”

Auguste let out a cry of impatience and was about to stomp away when Laurent said,

“Auguste.” It was the firm, serious voice that people only use in emergencies, and he turned back quickly to see Laurent’s eyes glued to Damen’s side.

There was blood pouring out from the rent in the armor. It was coming quickly.

“But, fae armor can block anything,” Auguste said, confused.

Damen looked down, as if he was surprised to see what was happening.

“It does not work so well against fae swords,” he said, which was of course what Auguste was wielding, had been ever since he had unwillingly entered the Queene’s service and -

He hadn’t pulled his strike. He’d been desperate to win, desperate to get home quickly, and he’d believed in the armor and he hadn’t pulled his strike.

“Shit,” said Auguste, quietly. Then again, “Shit!”

“Auguste,” Laurent repeated urgently, like Auguste could fix this, like he still believed in his brother to make everything right again.

“Lie down and get rid of that,” Auguste ordered. The armor around Damen disappeared into the mist, but he did not get down until Auguste put hands on him and gently pushed him back. He ripped open Damen’s clothes above where the wound was and put his face close to examine it.

The bowel was not perforated, he decided, after a moment. That was good - it meant that they still had a chance, that Damen was not doomed to a slow and painful death. But the cut went deeper into the muscle than Auguste liked, and it was bleeding freely.

“Come over here,” he said to Laurent, pulling the tunic up over his head and leaving himself in just his shirt. He balled it up and pressed it against Damen’s side.

“Put pressure on that,” he said, pulling Laurent’s hands over to replace his own. “There were blood staunching herbs growing to the side of the path. We passed them about three miles back. I’m going back for them.”

“Yes, I remember noticing them,” said Damen, almost conversationally, as if he were not currently bleeding to death, “I think they were closer to four miles.”

“Shut up,” said Laurent, “Just keep breathing.”

“It’s just a scratch,” Damen protested, which was in no way true.

Auguste got up. “Just hang on.” He was talking to Laurent more than to Damen. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Laurent nodded to him, bearing down on his hands and pressing the cloth against the bleeding.

His last sight before he started running full tilt back the way they came was Damen with a dopey grin on his face, looking up at Laurent’s tight expression and saying, “You’re worried about me,” as if that was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.

* * *

Damen was an idiot. Auguste was an idiot. The two men he loved most in the world were both idiots and if they all managed to get out of here alive, Laurent was going to murder them.

“You’re doing fine,” Damen said, reassuringly, “Just keep holding it like that.”

“I told you to shut up.”

“You’re the one who’s worried that this might be our last conversation. You’d think you’d want to keep talking.”

Something particularly devastating must have happened to his face, because Damen immediately softened and lay one warm hand over Laurent’s. If his extremities were still warm, then that was a good sign, right?

Laurent’s hands were stained red where the blood had seeped through the cloth.

“Laurent,” Damen said again, in his warm voice, the one that made Laurent tingle to hear his name in it, “I’m going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. This is not the first time I’ve been cut by a sword. You’ve seen the scars.”

“You have one in about this place on your other side.” He’d been running his hands across Damen’s bare chest and stomach only the night before. This did not feel real. “You’ll match.”

“A sparring accident with my brother, from when I was young,” Damen explained. “Healers were in and out of my room for weeks. They thought they were going to lose me.”

“If that was meant to be comforting -”

“So I know what dying feels like. This is not it.”

Laurent did not believe him. Deep down inside, he did not believe there was anything good in his life that he’d be allowed to keep.

But as they waited for Auguste, Damen did not seem to be worsening. His skin was darker than Laurent’s and Laurent was not sure what dangerously pale would look like on him, but the color in his cheeks seemed to be the same as always and it did not look like it was fading. Damen was lively and continued talking to him, and though he would not risk encouraging the bleed by pulling the cloth away to check, no more of the fabric than was already soaked through seemed to be getting wet, and what was under his hands was growing tackier, as if the wound was no longer bleeding as freely as before. If Auguste came back in time, everything might be alright.

A screech like an eagle’s rang out overhead, and Damen frowned.

“Ah,” he said, looking over Laurent’s shoulder, “They are drawn to the smell of blood.”

“What are?” asked Laurent, but even as he turned around, Damen was already surging up beneath him and rolling them both over away from grasping talons. Laurent caught a glimpse of something huge and golden, and as they rose into a defensive stance, Damen drawing his sword, he was able to look back and see, standing on the ground where they had just been lying,

“A griffin?”

The creature opened its beak and roared at them, eagle eyes peering huge and treacherous in a face far too big for its shape. Then it charged, clearing ground with a lion’s grace and coming straight at them.

“Go for the wings,” Damen shouted, and they sprang apart just in time to let it pass harmlessly between them. Damen missed entirely, but Laurent was able to bring his sword up just in time to clip a few of the feathers. Damn, that thing was fast.

It did not turn around to come at them again, but continued charging in the direction it had started, building speed and spreading out its wings until it managed a leap into the air, flapping as it rose higher and higher.

“It cannot turn in the air as sharply as it should,” Damen said, watching its movements closely, “You did that, I think.”

“Will it give up, now that it’s injured?” It was a truly magnificent creature, with the face and forelegs of the noblest of eagles, wings stretching out to either side each larger than a man was tall, golden feathers blending into golden fur to form the rear and tail of a huge lion. It was beautiful - miraculously beautiful, so much so that it took his breath away. He had a fleeting, wistful feeling that it would have been worth it to see it even if it killed him, which he supposed was another way that impossible creatures managed to get you.

“No,” Damen said, “As long as it can smell an injury, it will circle back around, but that will take it longer now, so at least you’ve bought us some time. It will be better if we can ground it.”

True to Damen’s word, the beast made a wide circle in the air and came barrelling straight at them, diving fast as a falcon. Laurent had only a moment to wonder whether they would even have time to fight it before Damen started running out to meet it.

“What are you -”

Damen drew back both arms and, holding it like a javelin, he hurled his broadsword into the air. It hurtled towards the flying creature, who was growing ever lower to reach them and was moving much to fast to pull up. _That’s not possible_ , Laurent thought, _No one’s strong enough to-_

The griffin screamed as the sword embedded itself in its chest. It faltered, writhing in pain, and Laurent was sure it was going to tumble out of the air before it righted itself at the last moment, the claws of its back paws brushing the crash as it pulled from a fall into a climb. He was knocked off his feet by the buffeting of its wings as it fought its way skyward with huge, powerful strokes.

Its hindquarters were dangling limp in the air behind it.

“Damn,” Damen murmured, watching it fly away with his sword in its side, “I was aiming for the other one.”

“You just threw a sword,” Laurent said, in disbelief. “You actually threw a sword.”

“You should run,” Damen said. Laurent turned to look at him and saw that he was bleeding again, whatever good that had been done by putting pressure on the wound undone by the exertion. “When you’re far enough away, you’ll find you can call for Auguste. The Queene promised she would not allow her land to separate you.”

“I should run.” Laurent repeated.

“When this is done, I’ll catch up to you both if I can,” said Damen, ignoring him.

“And if you can’t?”

“Then you can still do what you came here for, and lead your brother home.”

“How very noble of you,” said Laurent, stepping close to him and showing no signs of running. “It’s like something from a tale.”

“I have killed one before.”

 _Not wounded,_ Laurent thought, but he said, “Then imagine how much easier it will be with two.”

The beast was high in the air now, a distant figure searching for enough space to wheel around again. This far, and it almost looked like an ordinary bird.

“Back then, I managed to ground it. It is most dangerous from the air. It may be even more dangerous now than it would be whole, as it will not land again.”

“That is not persuading me to leave you to face it alone.”

“There is no reason to let it kill both of us when it is only after me. I will take my chances.”

Laurent looked up. Apparently the griffin did not like the angle it had found at first. It was wheeling around again, in a wider circle.

“And it will keep coming after you, regardless of what we do,” Laurent confirmed.

Damen nodded. He looked grim, determined, and also relieved, as though that had been Laurent seeing sense.

He would waste all day like this if Laurent let him.

Instead, Laurent advanced on him, pushing their mouths together and almost attacking him with his tongue. Damen startled, but he was a predictable man and soon he was kissing back, meeting Laurent’s passion and softening it, responding like he thought this was goodbye. One of his hands came up to frame Laurent’s face while the other hovered gently at his hip, connecting them. Damen seemed only too willing to follow Laurent’s lead, and Laurent pushed forward, walking them back in the direction of the cliffs, towards the spot in the undergrowth where Damen had earlier noticed a rude hunter’s snare lying in wait, pointing it out to him and Auguste, making sure to take the fight away from it. If Damen was thinking, he would notice what Laurent was doing and stop it. Laurent nipped his teeth along Damen’s bottom lip. Damen was not thinking.

“Oops,” Laurent said, as the trap closed around Damen’s ankle with a snap.

The shock on his face was almost comical.

“Looks like you cannot fight the griffin after all,” Laurent said, drawing out his sword, “Now I’ll have to do it.”

“I will get out of this.”

“Not before it comes back.”

Damen glared at him, angry and frustrated, betrayed.

“You have killed one before,” Laurent said, impassively, “Now you can waste time glowering, or you can tell me how it is to be done.”

“You have to stab it through the heart,” Damen bit out, “Everything else it will heal from in time, but a heart’s wound will kill it.”

Laurent turned away and looked back towards where he’d last seen the griffin. It’s silhouette was larger now, getting closer, but they still should have a little time to talk.

“It has two hearts,” Damen went on, “One in the lion half, and one in the eagle. I was aiming for the eagle’s heart, but I got the lion’s.”

“So the job is half done.”

“So I’ve made it worse. Now that it cannot walk, it will keep to the air completely. You’ll have to block its strikes and attack it from below as it dives.”

That was … not ideal. But he would only have to stay alive long enough for Auguste to return, or for Damen to work his way free, and then he would have allies. He could do that much. And if he could not … if he could not, he would have to trust Auguste to find his own way home.

“You really did this because I asked you to leave?” Damen pulled against the snare. He sounded bewildered.

“Because I know no better way to keep you from doing something stupid.”

“You are risking your life for me.”

“You proposed it first.”

Damen looked at him, a look so vocal of helplessness and anger and incredible appreciation for Laurent’s protective instincts that Laurent kissed him again. He could not help it, when Damen wore his feelings like that.

“Try to stop bleeding again,” Laurent murmured against Damen’s lips.

Then he turned around and raised his sword, walking to meet the monster diving towards him, ready to protect the man he loved.

“True love’s kiss is a fair price,” he heard Damen say from behind him, and the world dissolved around him, depositing him on the grassy hill of Marlas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure this is the longest chapter in the work and look! *MOAR ART*([check it out here!](http://silverdropart.tumblr.com/post/180684563771/has-anyone-ever-kissed-you-the-way-you-deserve-to))!!! I am blown away by how incredible both the illustrations are! Please let Little_white_angel know how beautiful it is.
> 
> Also, extra thanks to my beta @violentincest for talking me through a few scenes!


	6. Chapter 5

_This night is Hunter’s Moon, Laurent_   
_When fairy folk must ride_   
_And those who would their true love win_   
_At Miles Cross must bide_

Laurent whirled around desperately as soon as he got his footing, but Damen was not anywhere. Auguste was behind him, looking bewildered and clutching two fistfulls of plants that they no longer needed. In front of them was the fort.

_I tied him up._ The thought echoed in Laurent’s head as he spun around again, willing Damen to appear stumbling down the hill after them, clutching his side.

“Where are we?” Auguste asked, looking around, “Is that -” he squinted at the fort, as though peering through the strangeness to its old lines, “Is this home? How did we get home?”

“I tied him up,” Laurent said aloud, only barely able to stop himself from making a third pointless circle.

“Tied who up? Damen? Why did you tie Damen up?”

Then Laurent was running - fiercely, desperately, around the side of the fort to the gardens where he’d first come in. It would be late summer by now, but flowers bloom out of season in Faerie and - He skidded to a stop in front of a bush and yanked a rose from a branch, tearing his palm heedlessly on the thorns.

In the empty air next to him, Damen materialized. “Owe me a price,” he gasped. Then he collapsed.

Laurent dropped to his knees. The wound on Damen’s side was still open, and now there were three ugly scratches tearing up his arm and a small puncture on his forehead that was bleeding freely into his eyes. Laurent’s dagger was in his hand. Auguste joined them a moment later and, asking no questions, began to help Laurent wipe the blood away so they could see what new damage had been done.

“I would have joined you,” Damen said. He seemed to be talking more easily now that he was on the ground. “I just needed a quiet moment to will myself here.”

“And you did not think of that, when you were proposing that we split up?”

“I would have needed to keep it occupied long enough for you to get far enough away that it would not follow.”

The wound on his head was nothing, and the claw marks, though deeper, were not deep enough to give concern. It was the original wound on his side that had become dangerous again, and Laurent pressed his hands against it.

“What were you fighting?” August asked, almost conversationally, as he lay the plants he’d gathered down on a handkerchief and began to grind them with the pommel of a dagger.

“A griffin.”

“And it would have given you time to have a quiet moment? It was not simply hovering as it slashed at you?”

Damen shifted under Laurent’s hands.

“It would have had to dive again eventually.”

Auguste snorted. “You are lucky that my brother is so clever.”

“Yes,” Damen said, in a voice so warm and fond it brought heat to Laurent’s cheeks.

“Here, pack that into the wound,” said Auguste, passing Laurent the crushed plants.

“We need a healer,” Laurent said as he did so, “You’ll have to go to Fortaine. I left my men there, some of them will be there still. Paschal was with them, do you remember-”

“Laurent, you have to go,” Auguste interrupted.

Laurent pressed the crushed herbs more tightly into Damen’s side.

“I’ve been gone too long,” Auguste continued, “But you will pass unchallenged. They will recognize you.”

Auguste was right. Laurent knew that Auguste was right, should have known before he spoke, should not have proposed what he did. But his iron control had left him, and he found that his hands would not move from where they were, his knees would not rise from the ground.

Auguste laid a hand over his. “I will watch over him,” he said, and Laurent’s faith in Auguste, absolute, finally moved him. Laurent leapt to his feet and ran blindly towards the border, his only thought to be back as soon as possible - then he stilled, suddenly, remembering something Damen had said.

Laurent put his fingers to his lips and whistled, then he stopped - listening with anxious hope, feeling every second ticking away like it was a palpable loss. When he could wait no longer, but too soon for despair, he blew again, and this time Auguste joined him on the end, finishing the familiar cadence alongside him. Laurent glanced back and they did it again, whistling together the pattern Auguste had taught him when he was young. Laurent quivered, straining his ears, and at last he heard an answering whinny. A distant tarantelle of hoofbeats growing steadily louder on the muffled earth, and then she was their - wild-eyed and coat all a-brambles, but still coming at their call. The foal Auguste had hand-raised, the horse Laurent had first coddled, then set free. He stroked her rumpled nose just once, in thanks, and then swung himself up bareback and took off towards Fortaine as if all the dogs of the Wild Hunt roared behind them.

* * *

“You are fucking my brother,” Auguste said, flat-voiced, hands pressed against Damen’s wounds as he had promised, but, he hoped, a little hint of possibility in his voice that he might take them away again and pretend to Laurent later that Damen had bled to death despite his efforts.

“I love your brother,” Damen said, stupidly honest, “I will show him that love in any way that he’ll let me.”

“I would prefer it if you were merely fucking him.”

Damen nodded. “I would that it were not so complicated. But it cannot be helped.”

“Hmm,” Auguste said. He let the silence hang just long enough to be threatening. He glanced about. “Does love-lies-in-shambles grow here?” he asked, looking at the fairy plants. The ones he had brought would staunch the bleeding, but the other would protect from the fever that made wounds swell up and grow deadly.

“There’s some in the orchard,” Damen said, “Close to the ground, by the roots of the trees.”

“Hold that,” Auguste said, and he waited to make sure that there was enough strength left in Damen’s arms to put pressure on his own wound even with the blood loss before he went in search of it.

 

Laurent came back some time later, on a different horse and leading a second with a man on it who was wearing a hat shaped like a bread loaf. Peering at him, Auguste decided he looked vaguely familiar, though he had never paid much attention to the physicians who’d treated him for various illnesses and injuries of an active boyhood and a martial adolescence. Laurent, however, seemed to both know and trust him, as he led him to Damen without threats and announced the extraordinary revelation of Auguste’s identity with nonchalance.

The physician bowed with an accepting, “Your majesty,” before turning all his attention to the patient as though the King he’d just acknowledged and the Prince who brought him here were irrelevant pieces of furniture, and Auguste decided that he liked the man.

Pashcal, as Laurent called the healer, examined what they had done and asked business-like questions about the properties of the herbs, nodding and adding in his own salves, though he admitted that they would likely do little additional good when compared with plants with magical properties. He closed the wound swiftly and capably, and cleaned and dressed the more minor cuts that Damen had picked up.

“It’s autumn already,” Laurent said, “I rode through an apple orchard on my way for Paschal. The trees are bearing full fruit.”

“They can’t be already,” Damen said, brow already wrinkled from bearing it as Paschal dressed his side, “The Midsummer Market was barely a month ago. It’s too early even for the late summer apples.”

“Midsummer was three months ago,” Paschal corrected absently, eyes still on what he was doing. We’ll be celebrating Evennight in three weeks.”

Auguste looked sharply at Laurent. “She’s been playing with time,” he said, “Altering the way it moves in her world as compared to ours.”

With Damen moving back and forth between the worlds and apt to notice large jumps, she had had to be more subtle about it than in the stories Auguste had heard about mortals falling asleep in fairy rings and returning home after what they thought was one night to find that twenty years had past and their children had grown without them. Still, she had managed to nearly double the amount of time they were spending in her world without them being aware of it.

“If we hadn’t gotten back when we did, we could easily have let the deadline pass without knowing it,” Auguste realized in dawning horror.

“So it was a lucky thing that the griffin attacked when it did,” said Damen, lying on the ground.

“Yes, I feel extremely fortunate,” Laurent said dryly.

Paschal stood up and began packing away his things. “I’ve done all I can Your Highness; Your Majesty.”

Auguste frowned. “If all of this is true, then we’ve lost more time among our people than we thought,” said Auguste. He hesitated to continue with Laurent’s eyes searing on Damen’s face, but Laurent finished the thought for him.

“We cannot afford delay.”

If Paschal could do nothing more, than there was no reason to linger in Marlas, and they both knew it. Still, Laurent did not move.

“I’ll go back to the Court as soon as you are past the border,” Damen promised, “There are beds there, and shelter. Food. Healers, if she is not too cross with me for setting you free.”

“Yes. Yes, that would be best.” Laurent started to rise.

“I need another price,” said Damen, “From you and the physician, for coming though the border.”

“And Auguste?”

Damen shook his head. “There is no price for going the other way.”

Laurent leant down and kissed him, more lingering than before, deeper, the closest to good-bye that he would say.

“As for Paschal …”

“I would rather not kiss him, your highness.”

Laurent plucked Paschal’s hat off and plopped it on Damen’s head. Damen smiled.

“Does it suit?”

“Not at all, but I expect you to wear it anyway.”

At the teasing command, Damen’s gaze flared with more heat than he was probably aware of. Then the moment passed and his grin became rather goofy, acknowledging the silliness.

He was still lying on the bloodstained ground, half-propped on his elbow.

Laurent kept his face rigidly ahead of him the entire time they were walking away from him. It was Auguste who could not help looking back.

* * *

“Ready?” Auguste asked.

“Do I have a choice?” said Laurent.

Laurent looked out over the distance, towards where the Regent’s men were arrayed in the red that he had claimed as well as, offensively, the white and gold of the King. Laurent and Auguste’s own troops were arranged behind them in their own competing white and gold as well as the blue starburst that was now Laurent’s. He had found his own men (the most loyal of them, and those too low-born to have anywhere else to go without him) camped out between Fortaine and Marlas, being quietly paid by Lord Berenger while they waited for his eventual return despite the Regent swiftly declaring him presumed dead and seizing the throne for himself. Returning to them with dead Auguste had changed everything. They’d traveled in secret to Acquitart to regroup and for Laurent to send increasingly desperate messages into Patras and Vask, then backtracked towards Marlas openly, picking up support as they came. Lord Touars, who disliked Laurent, had only needed to look Auguste squarely in the face before throwing the whole support of Ravenel behind them. Memories lasted here on the border, where Auguste was still remembered as the Golden Prince and Vere’s protector, and men and arms and gifts of supplies flocked to their side as they moved. Up until the night before, men in their uncle’s livery had been creeping up in small squadrons led by some officer who had served with Auguste, who only needed to nod to the others that he recognized him before they were all stripping off their surcoats and joining their side. A few more weeks, and they would have built an army strong enough to march on Arles itself.

But they did not have a few more weeks. The battle would be today, and Laurent was not ready.

“He has had to move faster than he liked as well,” Auguste reminded us, “We are neither of us ready. That could work in our favor too.”

That was something. Returning with Auguste after six years missing was perhaps the only thing Laurent had ever done that had caught their uncle unawares, and to keep them from gaining too much, he had had to rush down to meet them before he could fully muster the army

“Don’t underestimate him,” Laurent said, “He has a way of turning disadvantage to advantage, of slithering out of things.”

Auguste turned to him with a warm smile. “That is why I have a clever snake of my own to anticipate him.”

Laurent looked past Auguste to the lines of the army waiting for them across the plains of Charcy. Behind it, he knew was Fortaine; Guion’s fort and the one place that would remain the Regent’s despite the border people’s love for Auguste. Beyond Fortaine, and to the south, lay Marlas.

They had gone back to check on Damen the day following their return, after they had spoken to Laurent’s men and started to work out the beginnings of a plan, and had found him hale and whole as if nothing had ever happened. _She did not like them_ , Damen had said, gesturing to his vanished wounds, and Laurent had felt a fool for not anticipating that, a poor excuse for Auguste’s clever snake. _If you build your army, he will come to you,_ Damen had also said, as they sat in his meadow and talked of their plans, Auguste laying out maps and diagrams between them, having come prepared to talk strategy with a fellow Prince and famed commander. Damen was a straightforward man who looked for simple truths and was trusting to the point of naivety, but he also had a way of seeing through things, of looking at a tangle and getting to the heart of it. Laurent had never outmaneuvered his uncle and he wanted Damen with him, at his back or at his side, with a piercing desperation.

He and Auguste had not talked about what would happen when this was over, if it went their way - if they would have time to visit Damen again, or if they would go straight back to Arles to secure their power. They had not talked about a lot of things: Laurent’s past, that Auguste still skirted around the edge of; winning Damen’s help with a kiss, and what that meant; Laurent sneaking off to Marlas the night before they left, to spend it in Damen’s arms one last time, crossing more items off of their imaginary list. Auguste had nodded to him, returning at dawn, and asked no questions.

They did not speak about Auguste either - about how easily he accepted that their uncle was dangerous to them on Laurent’s word and began planning accordingly, though it would have once been out of character for him to suspect family of treachery. Auguste’s lack of surprise had almost shocked him, but Laurent did not know whether it was simply that Auguste had learned something of deceit in the land of shadows, or if he knew something of their uncle.

He did not know whether his confidence in their strategy - to use Auguste’s name and trust that men would rally to him, that those who did not would be reluctant to fight him - was a reasonable assessment of the way Auguste’s memory had grown in his absence and with their uncle diminishing Laurent by constantly reminding everyone that he was not Auguste. Or the delusions of a child, unable to understand that the whole world did not love his big brother as much as he did.

There was too much that Laurent did not know.

“Are you ready?” Auguste asked again, and Laurent still was not, but he could see the banners moving forward, their uncle heading towards them to parlay before the battle, and there was nothing else he could say. Laurent edged his horse forward and rode beside his brother.

 

“So you have brought us to this,” their uncle said, staring down at Laurent as if Auguste was not even there, “Civil war in Vere, and an army raised to cut down your own people.”

The former Regent sat proudly on his horse, the crown of Vere sitting on his head in place of a helm. He was flanked on each side by two mounted Councillors, men at arms flanked around them. Lord Guion, at their uncle’s right hand, was no surprise, but Herode rode to his left and that was unsettling. Herode was an old man unsuited to deeds of war, and his primary loyalty had been to the memory of Laurent’s father. If he was here, it signalled some kind of shakeup in the Council.

“The people of Vere stand behind us,” said Auguste, “And if she is to be brought to war, it is at the hands of a usurper, quick to don the crown while the proper heirs still live.”

“Perhaps I was premature in my grief as it seems, despite all expectations, the Prince has returned,” he said, still looking at Laurent, “But nephew, why this foolishness? Are you too proud to seek forgiveness for your desertion that you could not come to Arles and receive our welcome?”

“Why this foolishness, Uncle? Why bring the troops of Arles against their brothers at the border? Why do you wear my father’s crown when the true heir stands before you?”

“Must you hide behind this pretender instead of facing me like a man?” He was still looking at Laurent, gently, paternally, a wise older relative rebuking a headstrong youth.

“This is no pretender. Six years ago, Auguste of Vere was lost - disappeared, but not dead. Now he is found and stands before you. Will you bow your head, Uncle, to the rightful King of Vere?”

“When he shows himself, I will. I see before me now a headstrong prince, younger than his years, still playing games that show him unfit for the throne he is meant to assume, and a stranger who has deceived our people for his own purposes.”

“You do look like Auguste,” put in Councillor Herode, peering at him, “But if you are he, then where have you been for the past six years.”

He was the first person other than Laurent to acknowledge Auguste, and Laurent treasured up what it meant for them that Herode had come to see for himself.

“In the land of mists and shadows,” Auguste said, “I went to plead for the return of Marlas, but I was foolish, and ate their food. I was held captive there until Laurent came to my rescue.”

“We have known them to take people and keep them for years on end,” Councillor Herode said thoughtfully.

“We have also known them to wear faces strange to them, and beguile the mind with tricks and illusions,” said their uncle.

“If my identity is in dispute,” said Auguste, looking at Herode, “We will agree to keep the peace while we await the Council’s pleasure here.”

“The Council is already here,” said Herode, which at least explained his presence if not why he had chosen to ride out. Laurent looked at his uncle.

“You got all those comfortable old men on a hard ride down here?” Laurent asked, “I’d like to have seen that.”

“I have failed to teach you responsibility, but other men know how to serve their country.”

“Still, a lot of effort for a claim you don’t take seriously.”

“I take all threats to Vere seriously.”

“I am no threat.”

“Then prove it.” Their uncle turned to Auguste. “If you are Vere’s protector and rightful liege, then come with me to Fortaine, and prove your claim.”

Laurent stiffented. Now he saw the threads of his uncle’s web and knew that, whatever happened, they must not step inside Fortaine.

“I have nothing to fear from my people,” said Auguste, and signalled that he would follow their uncle.

And because he could do nothing else, Laurent went with him.

 

“You’re an idiot,” said a small voice. Laurent turned to see a beautiful young boy leaning posed against a wall, one leg bent up in a studied air of carelessness. He must have put in some effort to catch them now, as they waited outside the hall for the Council to be gathered.

“Hello, Nicaise.”

“You should have stayed away. Now you’ve come back, the King is going to mount your head on a spike.”

“The King stands beside me.” Laurent turned to Auguste, “Are you likely to do that, brother?”

“Not hardly,” said Auguste, amused. He turned to Nicaise, “Hello,” he said curiously.

Nicaise looked him up and down. He was not impressed.

“You should have stayed gone,” he repeated.

“Concerned?” Laurent asked, “How touching.”

Nicaise snorted. “I’m not worried about _you_. But I like looking at beautiful things, and the only thing worse than having to see your face is seeing it all bloody and gross.”

Laurent smiled. “I met your twin, in the Other Realm.”

Nicaise dropped his foot to the ground and leaned forward. “I have a twin?”

“As like you as a mirror. He gave me something for you.” Laurent reached into the pouch at his belt and drew out the sapphires. “He said it would protect you.”

Nicaise reached out and took the jewelry, holding it up to the light.

“There’s no need to go spreading this about,” he said sharply, glaring at a servant who had passed through their chamber close enough to hear what was said, “The King doesn’t need to know. You can keep it quiet.”

The man bowed as he left.

“You know he’ll likely go straight to my uncle and tell what he saw,” Auguste said when the servant was gone.

“I know,” Nicaise said, as if talking to a child, “Now the King will have a separate account telling him that the earring did not originally come from Laurent.”

“Why should our uncle care who’s giving you jewelry?”

Nicaise turned back to Laurent without answering. “This doesn’t mean anything,” he said, fixing the earring to his ear, “I just wanted to wear a fairy jewel. It doesn’t mean I’ll sell you my contract.”

“You’re too young to have a contract,” said Auguste.

Nicaise rolled his eyes at Laurent so expressly that he nearly heard, _This is who you’re choosing to put your faith behind?_ out loud.

“I thought I was going to have my head on a pike and not be buying anyone’s contract.”

“That’s right.”

“Would you watch, if it came to that?”

Something vulnerable peeked out from the edges of Nicaise’s mask. “Would you want me to?”

“I’d prefer that you didn’t. I fear you may find it distasteful.”

Nicaise straightened up again. “Looking at you is distasteful.” He swept from the room with all the haughtiness of a spoiled boy prince.

Auguste hissed in his ear, “ _Who the hell was that?”_

 

“Laurent.” Their uncle sighed wearily, as if the weight of the world was upon him. “During my time as regent I have tried, despite your willfulness, to impress upon you the responsibilities of the throne and to teach you the ways of a good and rightful king. Now, despite my efforts, here you are: deining to appear weeks after abandoning your country to a childish quest, leading a will-o’-the-wisp and an army of men that you’ve manipulated into following your delusion to make war on you own Council.”

“You speak as though you and the Council are Vere’s enemy,” said Laurent, “It is only natural that soldiers should flock to their rightful King returning after a long imprisonment. Why should that lead to war against our loyal government?”

Despite Laurent’s undisputed return, their uncle had not removed his crown of office, nor returned to the Regent’s seat at the right hand of an empty throne symbolizing an absent king. Instead, he sat at the center in the most regal chair that could be found in Fortaine, flanked by the members of the Council on either side with minor lords and ladies gathered around. It was as if the entire court had uprooted and flocked to Fortaine, following the geese south. Nicaise sat on a low stool by Uncle’s knee, wearing his day clothes, with only the changeling earring to mark what he really was.

Auguste kept glancing at him in confusion.

“We have no patience to sit here and tolerate your prevarications.” He turned to the Council. “My lords, the Prince stands before us bewitched by fae delusions, having thrown aside his own people in a futile quest to restore his lost brother and, in his infantile desperation to deny the truth, been taken in by a glamour that threatens the security of Vere. You know how I have longed for news of my nephew during his long absence, most of all for his safe return. But under the circumstances of that return, the issue before us is to consider whether the Regency be reinstated, or - as much as it pains me from the memory of my brother, and the love I bore for him as a child - this latest and most dangerous escapade proves that it is finally time to examine young Prince Laurent’s fitness for the throne and formally remove him from the succession.”

Laurent felt his insides twist and curdle the way they always did when his uncle spoke, weaving words around him like a net, where every step he took would be the wrong one.

“The love you bore me as a child,” he repeated in almost disbelief, focusing on the least helpful part of that statement, but helpless to do anything else, and he could feel it welling up in him - the bitter recriminations, the accusations of all the ways his uncle had spent his youth manipulating and undermining him, encouraging his worst attributes only to display them for the Council in disgust, personal and ugly and not at all what the Council needed to see from him, but all he could think of when faced with the falsehood of his uncle’s care.

“The issue is that you doubt my claim?” said Auguste, cutting in before Laurent could be sidetracked. He turned to the guards stationed around the room.

“Basan,” he called, singling out one of Guion’s nephews, a man he knew from before but who had never been a member of his Guard or connected with him. “You wield a steel blade.”

Basan had started moving forward automatically at Auguste’s commanding tone, his unthinking expectation that he would be obeyed working like a magnet.

“Of course-” Basan hesitated at the title, glancing back at the man who’s livery he wore. “Sir,” he finished lamely.

“Show me.”

Confused, Basan drew his sword and held it out. Auguste wrapped his hand around the blade, not tight enough to cut, but firmly enough that Laurent and everyone else could see that his skin had contact with the metal.

“With my hand on cold iron I swear that I am Auguste of Vere, third of his name, eldest son of the late King Aleron and Queen Hennike, and, with their deaths, the rightful King of Vere.”

He released the sword and stepped back as though that had solved everything.

“He is mortal,” Uncle said, as if just realizing it. “Nephew.” His voice was shocked. “How long did it take you, to find an Auguste look-alike? How many people did you go through, before you found someone who matched his height and build, whom you could parade convincingly before your armies?”

“That is your story? That I, the rightful, went to all the trouble of casting for a false claimant so I could be the power behind a throne that was already mine by right? What possible motive could I have?”

“I have long despaired of understanding your reasons for doing anything.” He turned to the Council. “Gentlemen, I brought you here to decide the proper response to my nephew’s fantasies. But as it is now clear that there was no fae glamour, our meeting turns to a darker purpose. We now have no choice but to conduct the trial of Laurent of Vere.”

“Trial for what?” Laurent asked mildly.

“Your trial for treason against your own people.”

“Treason!” Auguste protested.

“What else would you call it when a man hides behind a false heir to make war on his own people.” Their uncle sighed. “Were you really so impatient that you could not wait to take the throne at your proper time? Or so convinced that the Council would find you unfit that you were desperate to find any other way to rule?”

“You tell me Uncle,” said Laurent, “As you are the one constructing this elaborate conspiracy, it falls to you to determine what my motives are.”

“Would it not have been better to listen to me, and prove yourself a capable ruler, instead of delving ever deeper into childish defiance until it led to this madness?” Uncle said, “It hurts me to see you like this, remembering you as a boy.”

Knowing that the whip was coming did not stop the sting. But before Laurent could respond, Auguste stepped between them.

“Councillor Herode,” he said, ignoring Uncle entirely, “When I was eight, you caught me playing a prank on one of my tutors, trying to hide a frog in his desk. You took me to task severely - for using an animal that jumps and makes noise, and helped me catch a grass snake to use instead. You let my father think that I couldn’t have done it by telling him I had been with you all day, and it was the closest I’ve ever seen you come to lying to him.”

“Lord Jeurre,” he continued, “Before Marlas, we had been in talks to breed a horse for Laurent’s majority. We had just chosen the bloodlines we wished for to produce its dam and sire, and planned on trying to breed them later that spring so they would be of age to stud when we wanted Laurent’s foal. We told no one of this, as it was to be a surprise for my brother.

“Councillor Audin. I was present in the garden when you and my father talked about the situation at the border and how to make peace with Vask. It was you who proposed paying the border tribes to leave our people be, suggesting it privately for the King’s ear as it was a suggestion of more practicality than honor. I spoke against it, but time and its efficacy proved you in the right.

“Lord Guion. When your eldest son and I were a little younger than Laurent is now, we got into a fight. No duel of honor, but a fist-punching, hair-pulling, ugly and scrappy boys fight, like common louts. We were each harshly upbraided by our parents, but it was not brought before the court as it was considered a thing too beneath the dignity of both our ranks to be publicly acknowledged.

“Councillor Chelaut. There was a night before I disappeared that perhaps you do not wish to remember, when the rest of the court had retired to their beds and we happened to be the last two at table. Over wine, in that quiet and thoughtful space, we discussed the way our country treats its bastards, and debated whether it was too cruel to those who cannot help the way they are born, and to even to those reckless people who bear the shame of having made one. I will not say before these assembled lords who held which side of the debate, or what was said by either, but being able to discuss so shocking and controversial a topic openly and with honesty impressed me deeply, and made me feel that when I would be King, there was nothing that I could not, with full confidence, bring before my Council.

“Prince Laurent was there for none of these occasions, nor would he have been told of any to be able to share such intelligence with me. I know these things because I was there, because I am Auguste of Vere, and have returned to you.”

Laurent blinked at his brother in amazement.

“I don’t remember the incident you speak of,” said Guion obviously lying, but frowning in feigned confusion to make a good show of it.

“I do,” said Herode. His eyes were wet. “Such a rambunctious boy, our young Prince, always escaping his lessons for the training yard. What a scream that tutor gave.”

Chelaut and Jeurre were nodding alongside him.

Uncle did not seem worried. “Whatever fae tricks helped you learn such trivial little secrets are no concern of this Council.”

“I thought we had established that I was none of theirs.”

“No glamour can last through a touch of cold iron, but a man can put his hand on it and lie,” said Guion, “And if you have learned these proofs through their magic, it would not make you forget them.”

“And we know that, whatever he has really been doing these long weeks, my nephew has been to the fae country.” He looked down at Nicaise with satisfaction, as if he was his trump card. “He brought back a bauble for my - glrgh”

It happened very suddenly. One moment, Uncle was reaching his hand down while he talked as if to stroke it patronizingly over Nicaise’s hair. The next moment, his fingertips had brushed a curl. There was a light, and a strange sizzle - and Laurent’s uncle was dead.

For a moment, everyone frozen as if in a pantomime play.

Then Nicaise was jumping up and tugging on Uncle’s hand like a lost child, the Council was on their feet and talking over each other, a guard was futilely running for a physician, more were swarming around the boy and the body, and Auguste whispered, next to him, “What the fuck just happened?”

“I don’t know,” Laurent said quietly, staring at the scene before him with an odd sense of unreality. “This wasn’t planned, I - I didn’t know what it did.”

“It was you,” shouted Guion, pointing at Nicaise and his earring, “You killed him with a touch!”

Nicaise stared down at himself in disbelief, then raised his hands and went for Lord Audin’s face. One of Uncle’s guards grabbed him from behind automatically, arms going around his waist and shoulders and reining in his struggling like a man with younger brothers.

“If this boy’s charm kills at a touch, my lord,” said the man, as he grunted through a bony elbow to the ribs, “Then why isn’t it hurting me?”

“You are not a danger to him.”

Everyone turned to look at Laurent, and even Nicaise’s squirming lessened, though he did take advantage of the distraction to smash his heel down on the guard’s booted foot.

“Nicaise is a changeling,” Laurent explained, “I met the boy he had been switched for in the Other Country, and he tasked me to give him that in exchange for information. He said it was for the boy’s protection.” He looked at what had been his uncle, sagging in its chair, eyes bulging and face contorted, the huge weight of his presence, of his menace and importance, suddenly gone. “I didn’t know it would do that, of course.”

“If Nicaise can control his behavior, I believe he may be set down,” said Herode.

Nicaise quieted and nodded at him, and the guard set him down. He stomped on the man’s food once more for good measure, then he stood still and compliant. Audin took a step back behind the other Councillors.

“That makes you jointly responsible,” said Jeurre. He looked slightly sick. “For the death of your uncle at the hands of this - gamin.”

“Does it?” Laurent asked, “He used the throne he held in trust to become a danger to the children of Vere, and was brought down for it by fae magic which answers to no man.” Laurent looked around at them. “To my mind he reaped what he sowed.”

“Everyone is talking of danger and protection as if it is something we should all understand,” said Auguste, “Who _is_ this boy?”

Nicaise straightened up and tossed his curls seductively. “Someone who knows how to serve a King,” he said, taking a few steps towards Auguste with a sway in his steps. “I’ve spent the last three years learning how to give a man like you what he needs to ease the burden of ruling, but you’ll find I am still green enough to be molded to your particular tastes. And as I am now without a contract,” he glanced back at the corpse still wearing the King’s crown, “I find myself unexpectedly ripe for the taking.”

Auguste recoiled in horror. “A pet,” he said, shocked, “How old are you?”

“Thirteen.” He was simpering.

“It’s fourteen now, isn’t it?” said Laurent.

“Fourteen. And my uncle’s pet for three years, that would have made you eleven. Eleven.” He stood there for a moment lost in confusion and disgust. Then he whirled round upon the dias, his anger terrible to behold. “And was there no Council, to stop this grave injustice, to see the character of such a man and challenge his fitness for the Regency?”

“Your uncle was always a wise -” Audin started, but Auguste was in no mood to listen, and Laurent did not see any reason to stop him.

“Why was this allowed to continue for so long?!”

“A man’s private habits have nothing to do with -” Jeurre tried.

“Did I leave my brother’s legacy to a pack of fools and cowards?” Auguste roared, shouting down the Council with the voice that had commanded armies. He was trembling in his fury.

The Council fell silent before him.

“This boy is pardoned,” he said with finality, as if already his word was law.

From the back of the room, a soldier’s voice spoke in awe and disbelief. “That is the King Auguste.”

Someone behind him fell to his knees. “Long live the King,” he spoke, in a fervent, quiet voice that echoed in the still hanging silence of the chamber.

Then it was as if a dam had burst, the desperate hope of the people that Laurent’s strange tale was true surging over the doubts of the Council. The cry went up around the room. “Long live the King!” shouted soldiers and guards and minor nobles. Within moments, men in the red of the Regency were tearing off their livery, those most loyal to his uncle first to blend in with the crowd, while men who had been switched to the King’s white and gold were kneeling to offer their fealty. The Council stood helpless, that Auguste had yet to be acknowledged by them seeming to no longer matter.

Auguste turned to look at Laurent, so much sick horror on his face that Laurent could tell he had put things together now he knew what their uncle was. The sick twistedness, the ugliness, of the private confrontation that would follow curled in his gut. But for now … for now, the man that had ruled his life since the age of fourteen, growing to seem more monster than man, was dead; Auguste was returned; the people were acknowledging him.

“Long live the King,” Laurent said, going to his knees before his brother.

Behind him, unable to do anything else, the Council did the same.

* * *

“You came back.”

“I came back.” Laurent removed his horse’s saddle and bridle, letting her run free again with the wild herd. He had a spare gelding tied up at the border in case she stayed with them at the end of their visit, when he would whistle for her. If she came back to him, it would be her choice.

“All went well, then.” Damen’s welcoming smile was like the sun and Laurent wanted nothing more than to wrap himself in Damen’s strong arms and kiss the smile off his face.

He did not go to him. The game was in drawing it out, in being made to wait.

“Better than could be expected,” said Laurent, and he sat down in the warm grass and told Damen all that had happened, while he stretched his impressive frame out in the sunlight and propped up on one elbow to listen. It had not continued to be as it had seemed in the hall at Fortaine. The great lords and ladies were not as easily swayed as the common people, and too many powerful men had hitched their futures too firmly to Laurent’s uncle to take the change of power with any equanimity. But the armies had gleefully conjoined at the first hint of acknowledgement, and no commander could move openly against them without the fear of mutiny. Councillor Herode was firmly on their side, with more and more nobles joining him daily as Auguste proved to be the man that they remembered. It was enough, that for now their enemies were forced to lick their wounds and bide their time. It was more than enough.

“Auguste has already been formally coronated,” Laurent was explaining, “With the Council and the royal family-” he meant himself “-already present, there was no need for delay. There will be a wider celebration of the coronation later on in Arles, but he has been crowned.”

“Did it feel strange to watch, knowing that it once would have been you?”

“A little strange,” Laurent conceded, “But an immense relief as well.”

“You would have made a great king.”

There, under a clear autumn sky with red shocks of maple dotted among the blue, Laurent felt disinclined to argue with him.

“Auguste will be a better one.”

“If that is so, it is only because he will have a loyal advisor in his cunning younger brother.”

“No. He’s better than I am, he -”

“He will need you,” Damen said, “And you will be there. But I’m glad you made the time to come see me as well.”

Damen was smiling again with undisguised fondness, and Laurent wondered how he always managed to be so warm and open in his affections that Laurent had to walk away from him before he did something stupid like open his own heart in return.

“I brought you a gift,” Laurent said, as he opened the saddlebags that he’d left lying on the ground.

“You are the gift.”

‘Presumptuous.”

“Yes.”

Damen’s smile had turned cocky, his dimple more pronounced and his eyes dark.

“You told me you had the most trouble with fruit, among the ordinary foods,” said Laurent, handing him a wrapped bundle, “So I thought perhaps something both savory and sweet.”

“Pastries?” said Damen, opening the cloth.

“Of goat cheese and honey,” said Laurent, “The dough was made and wrapped in the Veretian style, but I’m promised it won’t be too dissimilar to what is made in Akielos …”

But Damen had rushed to take a bite and was already savoring it with his eyes closed. He made a familiar noise in his throat that did nothing to help the heat crawling along Laurent’s spine.

“Good?”

“It tastes like home,” he said, “The Fair Ones have fruit so sweet and juicy it entraps the mind, and bread as sweet and soft as cake, but honey cannot be improved on, and they’ve never mastered cheese, not the way it should be. I can almost hear the sea and see the white cliffs.”

“If your release is really to be soon, I thought you should reacclimate to mortal food.”

Damen did not confirm that the Queene did intend to release him, which in itself might have been a tell. Instead, he handed Laurent one of the pastries. It was - interesting. Vere would not combine flavors this way, but there was something about the combination of creamy cheese and crumbly pastry, of the tang of it with the honey. He liked it.

“Sweet and sharp,” Damen said, watching Laurent, “Like you.”

Laurent snorted. “If courting me is going to mean inane compliments, I’d rather we skipped it.”

“Courting you is going to mean many things. If I were free, I would make it the work of my life.”

“Are all Akielons so foolish as to bargain for what they’ve already gotten? That will make trade negotiations easier.”

“But I want it again.” Damen kissed him. “And again.” Kiss. “And again.” A deeper kiss, that did not break, and they left the pastries forgotten between them.

 

“I should go. I promised Auguste I’d be back for dinner.”

They lay in a sticky tangle, Laurent’s head resting on Damen’s bare shoulder, sweat-sheened and exhausted. Laurent’s muscles ached like he’d had a long day of hard riding, and it did not seem worth the trouble to move.

“Must you -” Damen stopped. “You will dine with the court, and you need to present a united front with your brother. There will be supporters to win over, and political maneuvers to be made. Of course you must.”

He shifted his body until he was on his side, curled towards Laurent and looking at him.

“I have not forgotten what it is to be a prince, and I know how vital your work is now. I want you to know that I appreciate you coming back to me for one last day together, in spite of it.”

Laurent stretched his joints. “You’ve demonstrated your appreciation thoroughly and repeatedly,” he said, with satisfaction, “But this is not the last day.”

“But you must return to Arles, with your brother -”

“And I will. Later in the autumn, the court moves to north to winter in the palace.” It was tradition, for the Kings to move from wherever they were and get snowed in at the capital with their lords. “But until then, we are lingering here to shore up support along the border. With the armies gathered and the Council already in place, it seemed the sensible thing to do.”

From the way Auguste looked at him, giving Laurent a little more time with Damen before everything was over also weighed in to his brother’s considerations, but it was sound strategy nonetheless, and Laurent saw no reason to argue with it. The border provinces, unstable and often attacked, were nearly as important as the capital, and ensuring their loyalty before the weather made messages scarce and the sending of troops near impossible was paramount. They had worked out a circuitous route to Arles that would take them a month and a half of weaving through the other provinces to give as many people as possible a glimpse of their returned King, and by the time the heavy snows set in, they would have done all they could to secure the kingdom.

“We leave after the hunter’s moon,” Laurent said.

“You will be near.”

“It won’t be like before. I have duties that will not allow me to waste time here nearly every day, and while Fortaine is to be our center -” Guion and his sons needed to be closely watched - “We will be traveling to the other border provinces and seeing to their needs.”

“But I will see you again. Why didn’t you say before?”

“Because I wanted to experience your exertions, thinking this would be the last time.” He rolled his shoulders. “You’ve managed to exceed your reputation.”

“Snake,” Damen said fondly, “Do you want your parting gift now, or at our actual goodbye?”

“If you give me something, doesn’t that cancel out one of mine?”

“Only if it’s one of theirs,” said Damen, getting up and walking away, taking all his warmth and skin with him, and that was a crime against Laurent’s person and an insult to his family, he deserved all the gifts in the world for watching it walk away from him. “This comes from me personally.”

He gathered something from one of his little hiding places and came back.

“Nikandros sent another one of soldiers while you were away, and I had him commision this for me. It’s gold from my own coffers crafted with Akielon hands, and Faerie has never touched it.”

Laurent took the necklace Damen handed him, a heavy circle on a golden chain.

“The head of a lion with a starburst on its brow,” he said, examining the engraving.

“There’s a hidden mechanism. If you pull up on the starburst it releases a catch to open like a locket, so you can hide something small like a secret message.”

“Or a lock of your hair?”

“I did think about getting you a wrist-sheath and a dagger,” Damen said, “But I wanted to get you something small, slim enough to fit under your shirt, so you could wear it against your skin even among your bedclothes, and think of me.”

Laurent looked at him from the corner of his eyes. “Very presumptuous.”

Damen grinned. “Yes.” He was still crouched by Laurent’s side, where he’d bent to hand him the necklace, and he hadn’t put any clothes back on. There was a lot of skin. There was a lot of him.

Laurent decided that he could be an hour late.

* * *

“So fucking you wasn’t enough to get us back through the door,” said Laurent, “But kissing you was?”

“It wasn’t the kiss itself,” Damen protested, “It was the context of it.”

Damen was slightly irritated. He liked talking with Laurent, treasured the challenging back and forth of their conversations and the way they could meet each other as equals as deeply as he did the memories of pleasure and the helpless little sounds Laurent made that no one else got to hear. But it had been over a week since Laurent had last managed to find time to see him, and he did not see why they had to waste what little time they had going over matters in the past that were of little import. If Laurent wanted to talk, there were other things they could talk about. And Damen suspected that Laurent’s language became cruder expressly because he had realized it bothered Damen to refer to their lovemaking as “fucking.”

“Ah yes, one smacking of lips and tongues is significant and one is not, all due to the inexpressible power of _feelings_.”

“Laurent, you fought a griffin for me.”

Laurent stiffened slightly.

“So did you.”

“Yes, and I wouldn’t deny what it means.”

The tips of Laurent’s ears went reddened. It never grew old to him, the way Laurent could be disarmed by so simple a thing as honesty.

“Magic is dumb,” Laurent said, after a pause.

“It makes perfect sense,” Damen argued, “You just have to know the rules.”

Laurent rolled his eyes.

Damen felt the twinge in his brain that signalled a human presence crossing the border into Marlas, but before he could announce it to Laurent they both heard crashing footsteps and panting breaths running through the garden.

A woman came into view, eyes wild. She was not one who had visited Damen before. Her dress, though disordered from her run, was very fine, but the lack of recognition as her eyes flitted between Laurent and Damen led him to think merchant rather than lady. Her eyes settled on Damen.

“You’ve had one of my maids,” she said, voice constrained.

“I may have done,” Damen said cautiously, “I’ve had many maids.”

Not in a while, though. He still lay with the Queene at times as he could not avoid that, but ever since Laurent and Auguste had returned from the Faerie realm, he had considered himself a taken man and received many a thimble or button from a disappointed maiden.

“You gave her a plant,” she said, “One that stops what is to be a baby from becoming one.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll give it to me,” she said, and she started unlacing her gown.

 

Damen talked the woman down, gave her the herb that she sought and extracted from her a more acceptable gift. After that, he felt quite useless - ignorant and tongue-tied in the face of her continued tension, the fear and desperation she must have felt before coming to him not quite leaving her even after she chewed the little red flower Damen had given her and waited for it to do its work.

Laurent, however, seemed to know exactly what to do, and he sat beside her and expounded his ferocious opinions of men who did not know when to pull out until she laughed a little beside herself. Then they had a very frank conversation about things lovers could do that did not lead to children that made Damen flush and would have made him certain that he could not have been Laurent’s only willing lover had he not the proof of the hill. He and Laurent had few days left together, and he could easily have resented her for taking up their limited time. But it was the first chance he had had to see Laurent interacting with his own people, and he could not be anything other than grateful to witness Laurent’s care, to see him bending his sharp tongue to providing comfort in a way that was uniquely himself. As he watched them together he thought, with an ache that pierced his heart, _I’m going to miss him._

* * *

“There’s a festival of lights in winter, just as it gets darkest,” Laurent was saying. Damen leaned towards him slightly, head tilted, the way he did when he was actually listening and not staring at Laurent’s hair or the way his mouth was moving. “We build all the fires up to roasting and light so many candles that the windows glow. From outside, it looks like the houses are on fire they blaze so. I’m told that the peasants have bonfires in the village squares, and travel from house to house to drink cheer with each other.”

“I’m sure that helps with going outside to see a bonfire on one of the coldest nights of the year.”

“Can’t feel the cold if you can’t feel your face,” Laurent agreed, “But at the palace, the court all gathers together and we stay indoors. Children leave the nurseries and are allowed at the tables in the Great Hall. We slaughter one of the beef cattle so we don’t have to feed it over the rest of the winter, and there’s fresh food. Anything growing that’s still green is harvested and brought indoors.”

“I had thought green things did not grow in your winters.”

“They mostly don’t. But there are a few particularly hardy plants that don’t drop their leaves in the snow, and they get cut and festooned around like we can pretend it’s spring already. Then there’s feasting and music and stories all through the night, and hot mulled wine that warms you from the inside out. For years, that was the only alcohol I would touch.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Then the children are sent to bed and the orgies start.”

“Of course.” Damen’s mouth twisted.

“Gender-segregated obviously.”

“Obviously, otherwise it would be indecent.”

“Then we spend a week living off leftovers from the feast and telling each other how sorry we are that it’s over, then it keeps snowing for a few more months, and then finally we’re so frustrated at being kept in by the cold that we start throwing off our cloaks and racing outside at the first hint of a thaw, even though it’s still barely warmer than freezing.”

“Some of the obscenities of your court you’ve been telling me of make more sense if you have to spend a portion of every year cooped up together like that. The boredom would drive many towards madness.”

“There’s a lot of drinking to stave off the cold too. People get interesting ideas.” He smirked. “When spring finally sets in, the royal family usually takes a tour of the provinces, checking in on the nobles who didn’t winter at the court and letting the peasants catch a glimpse of their rulers.” Laurent plucked a blade of grass, still green in the meadow despite the season outside. “Will you still be here, when we return?”

“No,” said Damen.

Laurent let out a breath. He had been suspicious of Damen’s odd silences on the subject of his return, and to have confirmation that he would not still be trapped here come the spring was a relief. “I wonder if you’d consider whether Akielos needs a new ambassador to Vere,” he said, letting himself loosen enough to start to hope just a little. “Possibly one who knows the royal family.”

“I will not be in Akielos either.”

Laurent sat up sharply.

“I did not mean to tell you, but it is not fair to leave you wondering what’s become of me.”

“Damen.”

“It will miss you, and my brother, and Nikandros, but I don’t want you to worry for my sake.” He smiled in a way that recalled the triumphs he was said to have on the battlefield, that made Laurent differently aware of his size. With his eyes like that, he looked dangerous. With his eyes like that, familiarity did not make Laurent forget that he was. “I am stronger than they think, and bolder. There’s nowhere they could send me that would not see me thrive.”

“Damen. _Talk.”_

“They call it the tien,” Damen said, “All magic has a price to it. They do not age and they do not die, so every seven years, they must send someone to the place of the dead. That is their price. The tien is coming up and the Queene is - cross with me, just now.”

“They’re going to kill you.”

“No, it’s far more literal than that. Sending me there means I will physically go.”

“To the land of the dead?”

“They fear it, as they fear all mortal things they do not understand. But every man I’ve sent there died with honor, and I am not afraid to meet them again, or walk beside my ancestors.”

“No.” Laurent’s voice was cold.

“The choice is made.”

“I will not allow it.” He had battled trolls and won, he had fought a griffin and escaped, he had faced his uncle, the monster of his childhood, finally, at last, and seen him dead. He could not lose Damen now, not when Auguste sat on the throne, not when the fighting was supposed to be over.

“No man grapples with the Faerie Queene and comes out on top twice, Laurent,” said Damen, like it was settled like it was over before it began. He needed a plan. He needed time.

“When does this happen?”

“At midnight, the night of the Hunter’s Moon.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

Laurent got up and paced away from him, then came stalking back. “Explain to me,” he said, fighting for each word, “Why you intentionally left it so that I would have no time to plan.”

“Because I didn’t want to poison our last days together with the knowledge of what was to come. Because I did not want you to do anything foolish on my behalf.”

Laurent was calculating. “If I swung you over my horse right now and rode with you back to Fortaine -”

“I cannot leave Marlas, and you cannot take me from it.”

“We bargain then. There must be something that she wants.”

“She wants revenge, and she wants the tien paid. You have nothing to offer her.”

“I’ll walk into Faerie and challenge -”

“Challenge who?” Damen was shouting now. “It’s done, Laurent. We are nothing more than flies in her web. You have escaped and I have not. That’s all there is to say.”

“You should have told me,” his voice was shaking now, like when he was a child, like when he pleaded with his uncle, “You should have told me while we still had enough time.”

“I didn’t.” Damen did not look sorry. “You can forgive me now, or we can waste what we have left in anger.”

“I hate you right now,” said Laurent, going to his arms.

“I know,” said Damen.

 

The porcelain smashed against the side of the window with a tremendous crash.

“Ah good, the vase is gone,” said Auguste’s voice, “It was a Kemptian import, probably expensive, but I’m sure Lady Loyse didn’t need it anymore.”

Auguste was leaning against the doorway staring into Laurent’s room, around him lay the detritus of everything he had hurled about him in his rage.

“It was an ugly vase,” Laurent said carelessly, “She can use my apology for this clumsy little accident to buy herself a better one.”

Auguste shrugged. “It’s not my business if you want to spend your inheritance paying reparations for broken pottery, but I would like to know why you’ve upbraided one of your Guards so severely that he tried to resign, and made two servants cry today.”

“They were being unbearable. Everyone is being unbearably stupid today.” He turned to Auguste. “You’ve surrounded yourself with imbeciles.”

“Perhaps.” Laurent had forgotten the most frustrating thing about Auguste, which was that he wouldn’t fight him even when he deserved it. “Could be that you are in no mood to bear anything today.”

Laurent rolled his eyes and turned away.

“Something go wrong with Damen today?” Auguste asked, after a pause, and Laurent felt every limb in his body stiffen.

“Have you ever heard of a third place?” Laurent asked. He could hear his own voice tight and controlled, which seemed funny from the inside where he was wave-tossed and drowning. “A place not here or the land of the Good Neighbors? A realm of the dead?”

Auguste’s face fell. “Oh shit.”

The world went white. “You knew.”

“No-”

“You knew, and you kept it from me.”

“I didn’t-”

“Did you convince yourself you were doing me a favor? Or was it just that you couldn’t bear someone else having my attention? Him lost, and the doting younger brother is back, trotting at your heels-”

“I thought it was going to be me!” Auguste shouted, cutting in on Laurent’s tirade. “The Queene grew tired of me years ago, and I knew the time was coming.”

Laurent blinked at him.

“I didn’t know that she was going to choose Damen,” Auguste said, more calmly, “But she has no hold on me anymore, and she would be angry at Damen helping us. It makes sense.”

“You thought it was going to be you,” Laurent repeated dumbly. Auguste nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me?’

“You were already trying as hard as you could to get us back, it seemed pointlessly cruel to put more pressure on you. If we’d failed, I might have told you - but we succeeded, and there didn’t seem a point to it anymore. I never thought that - I’m sorry.”

_I chose my brother over you,_ Laurent had said. The words were truer than he knew.

“You should have told me.” His heart felt like a stone inside him, bearing him down, drowning. “You both should have told me. But you tried to spare my feelings, and now it is too late.”

He turned away.

“I can’t stand either of you right now.” He went for the door, thinking of the training yard, of punishing a training dummy until his hands bruised and bled and the pain gave him something else to think about.

“This is hard for me,” Auguste said to his back, “I hate the thought of you in danger.”

“If you think I care a whit about how hard this is for you-”

“Laurent,” Auguste said, in his firm voice, his King voice, that stopped Laurent with his hand on the door, breathing hard and willing himself to slam through it and leave his brother staring after him. “I know how to stop a tien.”

* * *

The moon was as full and bright as a silver coin when the Faerie procession rode. The air was brisk with the autumn chill, seeping under windowpanes and through the cracks of doors, cutting through thick cloaks as though they were gauze. But the fae caravan, led by their bright lady, took no heed of dark or cold, or the wind swirling round their feet. They laughed gaily to spite the dark, and shivered not beneath thin tunics and gossamer gowns. They glowed as they moved, reflecting the moon’s light back to it, and looked so sweet and shining and impossibly lovely that any yearning maid or reckless youth with the misfortune to catch sight of them would have thrown down yoke and spindle and followed them to they knew not where. The Queene rode in front, starlight gowned and ever-changing, with her great horned husband behind her staring over her head as if he were above and not part of what was happening; behind him came the court, on roan and blue and chestnut and grey, merry chargers dancing light-footed, mounted by a lord or lady laughing, brighter than the stars in all the colors of the jewels; and at the rear a single white horse, carrying the sacrifice, broad and bronzed and noble, of the Earth and yet beloved of Faerie, holding to his purpose with honor and with strength.

They passed through the mortal realm as they must, lying as it does between the undying lands and the country of the dead, and they passed boldly, jingling of bridle bells and singing catches of songs to lure poor humans away.

It was at the mirk and midnight hour that they passed the Miles Crossing, where the road north to Arran met with the one west to Patras. Laurent stepped up to the white horse, and he pulled its rider down.

Damen tumbled into his arms, as unresisting then as he had been on the ride.

They made a pocket, the two of them: Damen, lying on the earth, his head on Laurent’s knee, and Laurent crouched over him, arms about his shoulders in support. The space between their faces, in the circle of Laurent’s arms, seemed to contain all the world.

The spell was broken when the Faerie Queene spoke.

“A thorn in my side a second time, young Prince of Vere.”F

“I intend no quarrel with you, Lady,” Laurent said, in his most careful and courtly tones, “It is only that I keep finding myself caring for those held by Your Grace.” He looked down at Damen. “I would not be here if I could have helped it.”

“Perhaps you will reconsider,” she said, eyebrow impeccably arched. “For six years, your people have slandered us, saying we stole Marlas from you. We have not. Marlas was given us by right.”

“Given?”

“Before it was sold to us, the lords of Vere used Marlas as a traditional holding for the King’s brother.”

It was like playing chess and suddenly seeing a strategy click into place, your opponent’s moves all explicable as part of one larger goal. His father’s early heart attack, the way his uncle had barely pretended to be planning to restore the Regency when he returned.

“You promised my uncle the crown in exchange for Marlas.”

“And he wore it for three weeks,” she said, unrepentant of how little his uncle had truly gotten in return, “But your brother is the King now. If your uncle had made no deal, Marlas would fall to you.”

Laurent saw a vision then, the fort back in repair, standing firm and steady with the roof rebuilt and the vines torn down; peasant communities springing back up in the land surrounding it, fields being tilled and towns and villages springing up to take advantage of the commerce of the stationed soldiers and people passing to and fro; Laurent, slightly older, watching over all as lord of the manor, coming down to the stairs to greet his brother the King, welcoming hims in as host and showing off all that he had done.

“We could make it yours again,” she said, and the visions in his head changed with her words. He saw the fort becoming a bastion against his brother’s few detractors, a check on the might of Fortaine; he saw reluctant Councillors admitting that Auguste may have been six years gone, but at least he had not abandoned them for nothing, that he had succeeded in getting Marlas back; saw their enemies sharpest tool against them swept from their hands; saw Auguste embracing him, his kingship secured, thanking Laurent for fixing all of his problems.

“You are putting things in my head,” said Laurent.

“I show you only what is true,” said the Queene, as Laurent saw Guion on trial, being led away in chains; saw himself riding over his new lands, looking over the progress of the farmers and the state of the roads. “Accept our offer, and these visions will come to pass. We will treat with you more graciously than we did your uncle. Marlas will stay with you for your lifetime, and be passed on to your heirs when you go, even unto the seventh generation.”

He saw himself lifting a blond child up to a window, showing him the domain he would inherit as a younger son of Auguste.

“All you need do to achieve these happy tidings is let go the man in your arms.

Laurent looked down. The whispers were already starting from Auguste’s few detractors - where had he been for the past six years, what had he to show for it? There was so much Laurent would give to be able to shut them up.

“It is a more than generous offer, Your Grace,” he said carefully, “But nonetheless, I’ll take the man. You may keep the land.”

“Are you sure? Mortal lives are so short. He will be dead and gone long before Vere ceases to see the benefits of Marlas returned.”

“Still, I’ll take what years he has left.”

She sighed wearily. “Very well, if you’re sure.” She raised her hand. “Hold him fast, if you can.”

Damen stiffened. Every muscle in his body went rigid and he lay like a plank in Laurent’s arms.

“Laurent,” he bit out, voice roughened, desperate.

“I know,” Laurent said, stroking his cheek, “I have you, I have you.”

It was the eyes that changed first. Laurent was looking into them, warm and brown and full of the emotion his honorable Akielon never tried to hide. Then they grew, the dark at the center stretching up and down until they were slits at the center of his eye eye, and the rich color Laurent knew so well expanding, blotting out the whites of his eyes as it faded, first into golden honey, and then into a brighter amber glow - dangerous, poison. The features were still mostly his, but he already had to fight to see Damen in them. Then his hair receded and his nose started falling into his face, and a kind of panicked recognition slammed into Laurent’s hindbrain, every instinct in him screaming to let go, to drop the thing he held onto and freeze in unthreatening stillness until it slithered away. Instead, consciously, and with force of will, he lifted just one hand and pressed it hard against the back of Damen’s neck, keeping it there as Damen’s bones cracked and shrunk, as his skin turned to scale.

_The rules will stop them from doing anything to you,_ Auguste had said, _To make you drop him. But they can change him however they want._

Apparently, right now they wanted Damen to be a snake.

Damen’s clothes sank into his skin, his body shrank and elongated, and soon Laurent was holding a wriggling mass of muscle, huge and heavy. His - its - scales were cool and dry against the skin of Laurent’s hands, and its whole weight was in Laurents lap and in his arms where he had been cradling Damen’s body. The head with its huge black eyes turned towards him, tongue tasting the air as if trying to see how close his face was. Laurent was focused entirely on keeping that head away from him - hand wrapped around the back of the skull, holding it back - so that he didn’t notice at first that the mass in his lap was shifting to coil around him until he felt a bulge of muscle move under his hand, until the snake began to squeeze.

Quickly, while there was still time, Laurent thrust the arm that wasn’t holding the snake’s neck between the coils and his ribs, pushing up with all his strength. The snake didn’t move.

“Damen,” said Laurent, looking in its eyes, “Damen, it’s me.”

The massive head of a python stared back at him, implacable. Auguste had said that Damen would help him when he could, but they could change him into something that had no mind to understand what he needed to do. Could a beast like this think enough to know who he was, to understand not to hurt him? He could see no signs of recognition in the snake’s featureless face, but with a reptile like this, unfamiliar, would Laurent know if there were?

The coils around him tightened. Mortals had died doing this.

Laurent stopped talking and held his breath, remembering from his reading that snakes like this only squeezed as their prey breathed out, gradually working the air from them. Strangulation was a slow process. The trial of the tien breaking was meant to be quick. Laurent could pass out, he might even be dying - but if he could hold on and draw this out long enough, it should be over before he was dead. In this form, Damen - what used to be Damen - could not kill him without letting go, and if he was still holding on after midnight, he would win.

The Queene seemed to understand this, for it was no longer than a few seconds after Laurent had adopted this strategy that Damen began to change again.

His body shrank rapidly, so rapidly that Laurent was almost startled into letting go and had to fight to keep hold of the now much smaller body. The dull camouflage of the python’s scales shifted into a zigzag pattern, one that Laurent remembered from his childhood, Auguste holding him at a safe distance and carefully pointing it out, telling him that if he ever saw it again he should back away slowly and leave the garden, let the nearest adult know.

The snake was getting very small now, and to keep hold of it Laurent had to throw himself on the ground, lying almost flat as he pressed it into the dirt. The tail was thrashing desperately, whipping Laurent’s forearms as it tried to escape; the mouth open in a constant, angry hiss, twisting and turning to one side and the other as it tried to find the leverage to sink its fangs into Laurent’s skin. This was a restrained creature in a dumb, animal panic. There was no question now about what was left of Damen recognizing him, of trying to hold back.

But Laurent’s hold was firm, and as it became clear that he was not going to let go, the creature changed again.

Damen grew, so quickly that Laurent was tossed up on top of him and only maintained his hold by clutching desperately at what was now fur under his hands. He was lying on top of something huge and warm, and it wasn’t until it let out an angry snarl, twisting to swipe at him with immense clawed paws that he registered what he was clinging to, and a jolt of instinctive terror when through him at the thought, _Lion!_

He was on top of a lion. On top, and therefore exerting dominance and angering a creature longer than he was tall and more than three times his weight. But the thought of body language and dominance reminded him that lions were social, mammals that lived in prides, intelligent enough to coordinate a hunt. Great cats could be tamed; the Empress of Vask kept leopards; part of Damen’s mind might still be there.

“Damen!” Laurent said quickly, and then again softer, his soothing-fractious-horses voice, “Damen. It’s me, it’s Laurent. All is well. I have you. Damen.”

He continued murmuring as the beast stilled and he loosened his grip, carefully sliding down the animal’s side, repeating his name and Damen’s until he rested on the ground with a hand on his flank, then in the soft fur under his chin, where he scratched to soothe a frightened dog, showing he was not a threat. Through this exchange, the lion was continuously growling, and its great paws twitched as Laurent moved within range. But it did not strike at him again, and eventually Laurent was positioned almost underneath it, staring up into its golden eyes, dull yellow fangs mere inches from his face.

It blinked at him slowly.

Then the lion looked away from Laurent, turned its massive head in the direction of the Faerie Queene, and roared.

It seemed that Damen in this form had regained enough human intelligence to remember that Laurent was his friend and the Queene his enemy, but not enough to understand why attacking her was a bad idea. Laurent found himself clinging the great beast’s underside, trying to hold it back as it moved the the huge pads of its paws forward, curving it’s body to snarl complaints down at him like an argumentative hound.

Something tangled between them as Laurent grabbed at what he could reach of his shoulder, and the lion came down on top of him, weight going down to its elbows and partially resting on Laurent’s chest. The lion reared its massive head up and looked down at him, rumbling in its chest as if, if it were human, it would be reminding him that this was Laurent’s fault for getting in its way. Its fur darkened as Laurent watched, the mane disappearing when it didn’t so much shrink as the rest of the hairs grew to meet it, and the muzzle lengthened and grew narrow. Then Laurent could not think of anything but breathing, as the already heavy weight pressing down on him became the massive tonnage of a huge brown bear.

He almost let go then, as his his eyes bulged and his lungs burned, as the bear that was Damen scrambled to get its feet completed under it, off-balance from the weight-change of the shift. But when the giant animal managed to stand, Laurent still retained enough wherewithal to keep one hand buried in its fur. As if it knew that it had hurt him, bear-Damen stood over him protectively, like a mother bear guarding her cubs, and made no further attempt to move away or to get at the Queene. Laurent lay on the ground and fought to get his breath back. He felt a stabbing pain around his chest with each breath in - heavy bruising, at the very least, probably a few broken ribs. He tried to think back, to judge how long it had been. Midnight could not be far now. It must be nearly over.

But the Queene had time for one more change.

Above Laurent, the bear began to shrink again, and he leaned up and wrapped his arms around it, ready to hold on no matter what form Damen next took. He kept shrinking. The warmth and the softness of him was soon gone, and the exterior Laurent was touching became smoother than it had when he was a snake.

Soon Laurent was holding something in his hands, stiff and not alive.

_It’s a branch,_ Laurent thought in confusion, examining the piece of wood in his hands.

Then it burst into flame.

Laurent jerked in startlement, but did not drop it. The flames concentrated on one end of the branch, sending heat up to his face, and at first Laurent did not know what the Queene’s motive was in this. Perhaps she only meant to shock him into letting it go. Then he saw how quickly the fire was eating through the dead wood, burning its way down the branch, and he saw the plan in its terrible simplicity. He moved his hands to the far end of the branch, touching as little as he could and still hold on. But he could see the moment coming where he would have to choose - to let go, and lose the battle, lose Damen; or to hang on, and let himself be burned.

As the fire crept down he could feel it, inching towards his fingers, the anticipation of pain more terrible than pain itself. Sick dread pooled in his stomach. He found himself tightening his grip, white-knuckled even when it was still safe. He knew what was coming would be horrific. The moment approached. The moment came. Laurent held fast, and he learned that he was wrong. About the pain. Pain was worse.

Laurent screamed in agony as the flames seared into skin. There was nothing that had ever felt like this. No knife had ever cut so deep, no tear had ever ripped so broadly. His vision whited out and his ears rang with the sound of his own cries. It was like nothing existed anymore, nothing but the feel of the burning -

And then it was over.

The flames were gone, and all pain with it, and he was holding in unblemished hands a piece of wood that quickly grew and changed until it was a man too tall and broad to hold like that, and Laurent wrapped his arms around Damen back with him at last. Damen’s fae clothes were gone, and Laurent pressed his tear-streaked face to the skin of a bare shoulder. He could not tell which one of them was trembling. He took a deep breath and found that the damage to his ribs had healed as well. The pain had been real, but the injury only lasted as long as the ritual did,

In the distance, he could hear the sound of bells - the nearest tower striking in the midnight.

There was one more thing. One last piece to complete the ritual, to sever Faerie’s claim on him this night, and for once and all. His arms still around Damen, he reached up carefully and with hands still shaking from the ghost of burns, unclasped his cloak and wrapped it around his lover.

“Laurent,” Damen said. He sounded confused. Laurent would have to ask him later what it had been like for him, how much he could remember.

“It’s alright,” Laurent said, pulling him close. “It’s over now. I have you.” He leaned close, looking into Damen’s eyes. “You’re mine.”

“Yes, I believe he is,” said the voice of the Faerie Queene.

Laurent turned. In the circle of their arms, he had nearly forgotten that anything apart from himself and Damen existed, but the whole fae court was standing around them, staring. The Queene turned to Damen.

“If I had known how it was between you, I would have plucked out both your eyes and given you eyes of stone,” she said, as mildly irritated as if she’d said, _If I’d known you were going to drop it, I wouldn’t have let you hold my book._

“But there’s naught to be done about it now, and we do need a sacrifice.” Her eyes turned over her courtiers. “Allerue will do. Put him on the horse.”

“No!” he screamed wild-eyed. “Send Marguerite! She’s mortal, she’ll go one day anyway! Send her in my place!”

“You know that we can only send those who hold value for us, and Marguerite has been abandoned for some years.”

“Send him then!” He pointed at one of the other courtiers. “Or her! Or her, or-”

Two of the largest of the fae courtiers grabbed him by the elbows and began dragging him towards the horse.

“You can’t do this!”

“I can do anything I like.”

“Your majesty, please!”

“Don’t be tiresome, Allerue.” She sounded bored.

He was screaming as his companions picked him up and bodily deposited him on the saddle, but as soon as he touched it his screams stopped. He went glass-eyed and quiescent, and picked up the white horse’s reins.

Somehow that was the most horrifying thing of all.

“Proceed,” she said, and the fairy court rode away from them, bridle bells jingling as gaily as when they had come. Laurent and Damen watched them until they were out of sight.

“I told you,” Damen said, “Not to do anything foolish.”

“Then it’s a good thing that I did not ask leave of you before I did it.”

Damen smiled at him, naked beneath Laurent’s cloak, real and alive and free.

“Nikandros will be pleased to see that I’ve kept my promise after all.”

“It’s a long way to Sanpelier,” said Damen, looking at him warmly.

“Yes. And unless you’re hiding it someplace very clever, you don’t seem to have a horse.”

“Some willful princeling pulled me off mine.”

“Really? How very rude,” Laurent said. “I suppose, then, you’d better come home with me.”


	7. Epilogue

Damianos had been stationed in the bow of the ship ever since the white cliffs came into view. Laurent, standing beside him, was pleased for the excuse to spend so much time on deck in the fresh air. His reaction to the tossing of the waves was fortunately mild, but the journey had been long, and the effort of appearing not affected at all had been wearing on him.

Laurent picked at the laces of his sleeve. “It is cooler up here, with the breezes,” he commented, and Damen finally turned away from the growing image of the palace to smile at him. Around them the ship creaked as it bore down on a wave, sending up a splash of foam that Laurent felt as a droplet on his hand, clutching the side.

“It’s only spring yet. It doesn’t actually get hot until high summer.” The sun had been oppressive since they crossed over into southern waters. “Watching you endure that would be fitting recompense for winter in Vere.”

Damen had responded to his first snowfall with all the wonder of a child, walking about with his eyes up and awe on his face, hands extended to catch the flakes as if each one were a miracle. Afterwards, he had taken to wrapping himself in all the blankets he could find and trying to coax Laurent into wasting the day in bed with him instead of compelling them both to leave the sanctuary of the covers. Laurent had taken a particular, childish joy in watching him whine and squirm when his nest was stripped away - but lying in bed with him was a tempting prospect, and Damen had won that battle more than once.

“That would mean extending our stay by months,” Laurent commented, neutrally he thought; but Damen, who read him well, immediately softened.

“I was not suggesting that we stay that long,” he said, “Your brother needs you.”

That was only partially true. Laurent was a valuable advisor to Auguste, and Auguste needed his counsel, but he had over the long winter found others in the court whose judgement he trusted and could do without Laurent for long stretches. It was Damen whom Auguste needed: someone who knew what Auguste was going through, because he had been there too. When one of Laurent’s spies came in the night to alert him that the King was again out of bed and in the yard, exorcising his demons on a training dummy, it was Damen who got up to spar with him, and stayed afterwards to commiserate about whatever part of Faerie had been haunting his dreams. When Auguste had fought with the Council about beginning plans to arrange a marriage and finally confessed to his irritated brother that he felt he could not, in good conscience, enter one while he found human women disgusting, Laurent had been repulsed. It was Damen who sat with him and talked about how Marlas had reacclimated him to mortal bodies and faces, and stayed in conversation with him about how to learn to love them again, what traits he should look for first.

When Auguste tilted his head in response to something no one else could hear, eyes going distant as he listened, it was Damen who mirrored his actions and timing exactly, nodding in agreement when Auguste said that the Wild Hunt was on the ride, drawing his chair closer to the fire. By his very presence, Damen demonstrated to the court that their King, while touched by his experiences, was not mad; that someone else shared his same reactions and idiosyncrasies.

Damen had taken it for granted that he would stay with Laurent and Laurent would stay with Auguste, and had never questioned the narrow window of time they were sparing for his own brother.

“I was thinking of future trips, in a later season,” Damen continued, and he grinned sharp. “Perhaps then the heat will drive you into Akielon clothing.”

The morning after the tribulation at Miles Cross, Laurent had risen early to speak to Auguste about how to explain Damen’s presence to the court. Damen had joined them later, entering the room with some comment about how much of a relief it was to be wearing mortal clothes again, and Laurent had turned expecting to see him in Veretian garments and found him instead wearing what seemed to be the fort’s smallest bedsheet, wrapped around him in drapes that flattered what little they concealed and left exposed all of his arms, half his chest, and most of his legs to the upper thigh. Laurent had frozen with a glass halfway to his lips and Auguste had never let him live it down.

Laurent had packed a chiton deep in the recesses of his trunk where Damen would never notice, but in revenge he was saving it for a stunning reveal, very much in public and hopefully when Damen was holding something breakable.

In the meantime, he endured the heat, as Damen had endured the cold for nearly a week before caving to the need for Veretian garments.

“Will King Kastor be insulted, that I keep to my own country’s clothes?”

“He may tease you a little if you flush with the heat, when he knows you better.” Damen’s brow was wrinkled. “But why should he take offense at you holding on to your own culture?”

“I got the impression that he was a man quick to read insult into minor gestures.”

“You have been listening too much to Nikandros,” said Damen. Nikandros had refused Laurent’s first request for troops when they had been preparing for the fight against his uncle, angry that he had returned without Damianos. He’d been quite keen to make that up to Laurent when he had gone back and freed Damen after all, and they were now friends of a sort.

“Nikandros never trusted Kastor. He thought that he was jealous, spiteful. He may have been all that before I was taken, but he was also my brother. He will be as glad to see us now as I will be to see him, and his family.”

Laurent was not so sure. Letters from Ios had been disappointingly infrequent in the time Damen had stayed with them, and while Auguste said comforting things about the difficulty of getting messages to Arles and Akielon messengers unfamiliarity with snows, it still seemed to Laurent that Kastor was not a man eagerly awaiting his lost brother’s return home.

“We knew that my father was dying for some time before the end,” Damen said, as if in response to Laurent’s unspoken skepticism. Laurent looked up. Damen had never spoken of this before.

“He went on more progresses after I was taken, to reassure the kyroi and to give my brother space to practice ruling in Ios in his stead. He meant to live to see my return, and choose between us then, but there was an outbreak of  _ phthisis  _ along his route. Once the symptoms start, there is no stopping it.”

Damen looked out over the water.

“He expressed a wish to see me, but he also wanted to prepare my brother for the transition, and did not want to risk worsening on the road and leave him to deal with a King’s death from a distance and all the rumors and dissatisfactions that would follow. Kastor reassured him, insisted that he come to Marlas and see me one last time.”

“You were able to see him.”

“He stayed with me a week before the damp in the field got to him, and the escort returned him home. I am told he rallied once in Ios and lingered for another year, but Kastor could not have known that that would happen.” Damen turned back. “The Fair Lady stole the last years of my father’s life from me, but my brother sacrificed his time to give me back seven days. Whatever other difficulties there may once have been between us, that is the kind of man my brother is.”

 

The palace at Ios was much different than the one in Arles. With the concern for letting the heat out rather than keeping it in, the rooms were light and open, pillars replacing walls where they could and strategically placed windows and doorways to allow in the air from the sea. At first glance the white of it was dazzling in the sun; on second, it was plain and boring, distractingly dull for the home of Kings; then, as Laurent became used to it, he began to notice the subtle patterns made by the natural veins of the marble, and appreciate the way the clean lines brought his attention to the wide spaces of the inner rooms, and the great expanses of gardens and the cliff’s overlook that could be seen through large windows and pillared walls. It was both beautiful, and, in its own way, grand.

Still could have used a few more mosaics, though.

Laurent found the accommodations he’d been given quite suitable and no insult to Vere, but he had instructed the servants to bring him to Damen’s rooms before the welcoming banquet so he could see where he would actually be spending most of his nights here.

“They’ve managed to put me in my old rooms this time,” said Damen with approval, as he showed Laurent inside. “I suppose the Crown Prince will have them when he’s old enough to be so far separated from the Queen.”

They walked down to the Great Hall together, led by servants through hallways that Damen knew enough to walk blindfolded. Laurent was thinking of their earlier greeting at the steps, Damen eagerly embracing his brother, the King’s face full of something more complicated yet unreadable, when a sudden suspicion occurred to him.

“You did tell Kastor what you intend to do,” Laurent asked, just before they were ushered into the hall.

“He’s my brother; he knows,” said Damen, which was not in fact an answer, but the herald was issuing their names before Laurent could question him further.

“Our brother of Vere,” King Kastor said, greeting Laurent as he entered the room. He was standing in the center of the room, on the marble floor before the long tables, the rest of his court arrayed behind them, standing behind their chairs as they waited for him to sit so that they could too. “We welcome your visit, and hope for greater peace between our two nations.”

Laurent bowed and made his own polite remarks, then a servant was leading him away from Damen’s side, showing him to his own seat at the high table.

“And our brother,” Kastor said more warmly, clasping Damen by the arm in a more informal greeting. They had met the royal family briefly on the steps of the palace before being taken to their chambers to rest and refresh from the road, and watching them now, as he had before, Laurent was struck with the similarities between the brothers. They had the same coloring, and were nearly of a height (though his Damen was, of course, the taller of the two), and had inherited from their father the same straight nose and prominent cheekbones. But Damen had an honest face, wide and disarming, while something hard and bitter lingered around Kastor’s eyes. “Long you have been kept from us, and well met, now that you are home at last.”

They embraced before the court, Damen leaning into his brother’s arms with a guileless smile.

“Welcome, brother, and let us drink to your return.”

At the King’s gesture, a servant moved to place two chalices in his hands, one of which he passed off to Damen. Kastor raised his glass.

“My own toast first,” said Damen. He raised his voice to address the company. “Nine years ago, King Theomedes took me to the Kingsmeet, and placed on me the lion pin that named me his first heir. But that was before I was taken. For seven years, I have been trapped in a foreign court as the country grew and changed without my knowledge, as I lay idle and forgot my father’s lesson. In that time, Kastor has served you well, both as the Crown Prince in my stead, and as a good and fair King, when my father left the throne.” He lowered his head in remembrance. “I will make no move to challenge for the throne once intended for me, but so that there is no confusion, or tension in my name: I, Damianos, in front of these witnesses, formally renounce my place in Akielos’s succession, and any claim to its throne for myself or for my heirs.” He raised his glass in his brother’s direction. “To the health of the King.”

Kastor’s face had gone through a series of changes as Damen spoke, emotions playing over them like light reflecting off the waves. At the last words, his hand darted out and he grabbed Damen’s wrist, shaking the wine glass out of his hands.

It fell to the floor with a shock.

Afterwards, he tried to play it off like an accident, pulling his brother into an embrace too hasty to be natural, laughing loudly at his own clumsiness while Damen looked confused.

But Laurent had seen the spasm or horrified guilt that had moved him, and would not forget. He rose to his feet.

Across the table, Queen Jokaste was rising too. Meeting her on the steps of the palace had been like looking into a mirror, slightly warped: not just the same coloring, but the same smooth implacability on her face that Laurent shared himself, the calculating shrewdness in her eyes. It seemed the royal brothers shared a type as well.

She had taken a sip of her own wine immediately after the fall, and stood with her mouth twisted in disgust.

“This wine is sour and weak,” the Queen announced, “I must apologize for allowing it to be served in our hall.” She paused to incline her head towards Laurent and the other important men in the company. “It was a fortunate accident, husband, for it is too feeble a medium to conduct so great a pledge between brothers.”

“Yes,” said Kastor, seizing on the excuse with a half-hysterical relief, “Yes. Why are we drinking wine at all? My brother has returned.” He clapped Damen twice on the shoulder. “Bring out the griva!”

A mixture of laughs and groans went around the table, and someone from the back cried out, “Not so early!”

“I haven’t had griva in almost eight years,” said Damen, not sounding entirely thrilled to be trying it again.

“Still tastes like piss,” Kastor reassured him, to the amusement of the court, “But it is a drink for men!”

A rather boorish cheer went up from among the younger men of the group. The servants had started bringing out the requested drink among the party, and Laurent saw that both Damen’s and the King’s glass were poured from the same jug.

“A fortunate accident indeed,” Laurent said mildly, keeping his eyes on Kastor and Damen obviously enough to catch Queen Jokaste’s notice.

On the floor, the servants were wiping up the last of spilled wine, where it had spread like blood stain.

 

The feast was a spectacle of Akielon delights, a perplexity of dishes as the cooks outdid themselves to offer as many homely choices as they could to their wayward prince. Damen and Jokaste were seated on either side of the King, with Laurent on Damen’s other side where he could keep an eye on the meal. Kastor did not seem concerned about only taking from certain platters, and didn’t react when Laurent, under the guise of foreign curiosity about Akielon food, began stealing from Damen’s plate. Over dinner, Damen had begun telling his brother of his adventures in Faerie and how he had come to return home.

“But didn’t She exact revenge?” Kastor asked, pausing between mouthfuls, “After you’d stolen away the Veretian Princes and then wriggled out of the punishment she planned?”

“Laurent extracted a promise that she would not seek revenge for his escape, and the rules of the tien require that those involved are not to be harmed because of it,” Damen explained, “That would not stop her, if she were inclined to search for loopholes, but she would not exert herself. The moment we passed her sight, we ceased to be important to her.”

“There are a few individuals who might be more inclined to follow after,” Laurent said, “Prince Damianos did not take as much care as he should have to avoid angering those he disagreed with.”

“My brother?” said Kastor, laying his hand over his heart with an air of exaggerated false surprise that might have made Laurent like him if he hadn’t witnessed what he had. “No!”

“But none of them are quite powerful enough to entirely ignore the might of mortal thrones, and King Auguste has made it clear how deeply he values Damianos for his help.” Laurent looked at Kastor significantly. “Anyone who harms him must answer to the whole of Vere.”

“This is a change, letting your lover protect you,” Kastor said, turning to Damen. He did not sound approving.

But Damen only smiled. “We protect each other.”

 

The griva kept flowing after the last of the food was cleared away, the group around Damen and Kastor growing rowdier.

“Let’s see the famous griva,” Laurent said, grabbing Damen’s glass out of his hand and downing the whole thing at once. It burst over his tongue like a stinging fly, and burned going down his throat. Around him, Kastor’s men were watching him for a reaction, and he waited to open his mouth until he had swallowed again and regained control.

“Tastes like piss,” he said, but (with great effort) his eyes were not watering and his voice not raspy, and that was enough for the Akielons around him to let out comradely guffaws.

“Another round?” Kastor offered.

“Another night,” Laurent demurred, “Better not to have  _ that  _ be my first taste of your country.”

Kastor waved him away good-naturedly, but he leant in to talk to Damen before he left.

“Staying to drink with your brother?” he asked, and Damen agreed happily. “Don’t indulge too much.” He lowered his voice still further, whispering in his ear. “I want you sober enough tonight to hold me up against a wall and fuck me.”

Damen flushed, the red showing through the dark of his skin, and Laurent moved away confident that he would pace himself enough tonight not to be too vulnerable.

Laurent took his water and stationed himself against a wall, still in view of the royal table, but a little bit out of the noise and bustle. He leaned back. Keeping so close a watch on the plates and glasses was giving him a headache.

Queen Jokaste soon found time to join him. “How do you find our court?” she asked.

“It is very beautiful,” Laurent said truthfully, “Though less different from my own court than I had been told.”

Jokaste had a three-year-old son by Kastor, away in his nursery now, who had hid behind her skirts while Damen had tried to seriously introduce himself and held out his hand to shake. Her belly was starting to swell now with another, and she smoothed her hand over her distended skirts.

“I hope the incident earlier did not too badly color your impression of our court,” Jokaste said, “It was a momentary aberration. I assure you, if I had known beforehand, I would never have allowed wine of such quality to be served to honored guests.”

“I’m sure you would have told the King to do it in a way where he was less likely to be caught.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“No? And here I was thinking you were clever.”

“What a dreadful thing to accuse a woman of.”

Over the following days, Laurent and Damen would undergo a course of several negotiations with the royal couple, and he would see how their marriage worked. Damianos had given up all his former royal holdings when he publicly rescinded his rights, but apparently his mother, the late Queen Egeria, was an important woman in her own right, and there were many important lands of hers that he now owned. They would go through them all, deciding what Damen would keep and what Kastor would trade for in order to have returned to the Crown (Laurent would be unable to stop Damen from trading a keep with extremely valuable pasture land attached for a luxurious but practically worthless retreat called the Summer Palace, on the grounds that he did not plan to be in the country enough to make use of farmland but wished to stay with Laurent at the Palace, which had been important to his parents), and he would observe them working in tandem. The most interesting thing would be that Kastor clearly thought that he was dominating the conversation. Jokaste would lay out an argument and leave it open ended, and Kastor would leap in to provide her forgone conclusion - or, she would advance a line of reasoning so specious that Kastor would immediately contradict it and begin negotiating for the opposite of what she had seemed to be driving towards. The result would be that the King did exactly what Jokaste wanted him to, in the exact way Jokaste wanted him to, while believing the whole time that everything was his idea. If Laurent had known this the night of the banquet, he would have been more comforted by her reassurances.

Instead, Jokaste turned back so that they were both watching the high table where her husband and Damianos were sitting together.

“For many years, it was thought that Queen Egeria could not have children,” Jokaste said, and Laurent looked at her in surprise. Damen had not mentioned this in the few times they’d talked of his family. “Kastor-Exalted was raised until the age of nine with the expectation that he would inherit the throne. Then Damianos-Exalted came along, and that went away. He loved his brother, but it was hard. Then the brother went away and he had again everything he had been promised. And then his brother came back.”

Drink apparently made Kastor maudlin, and after many rounds of griva, he was leaning against Damen, patting his hands up his arms and his shoulders as Laurent had wanted to touch Auguste when they were first reunited to reassure himself of the wonder of his brother’s physical presence, and talking of taking Damen to the Kingsmeet to visit their father’s statue together.

“It would be understandable, if under such circumstances, a man made a deeply regretted decision in a moment of desperation and weakness,” she went on, “Fortunately, the King is a strong man and has done nothing wrong.”

It would have been more than a momentary decision, to plan out and execute what Laurent thought had almost occurred. Still, Kastor had been drinking like a man taking courage after a great fright, and his relief was so palpable Laurent could feel it from across the room.

“It is fortunate that he is, for I would destroy anyone who harmed a hair on Damianos’s head, King or no.”

Jokaste inclined her head to show that she understood him, and moved away.

 

Later that night, they walked back to Damen’s room together, the light from the oil lamp sending flickers of light up the marble walls as the servant carried it before them. Damen’s arm was slung about Laurent’s shoulder and he was leaning into him a little more warmly than was usual even for him, but he had followed Laurent’s instructions, and did not need the support to stay on his feet.

“Did you have a good talk with your brother?” Laurent asked, although Kastor had become so loud in his cups that Laurent had heard most of it. The King needed to be carried to bed that night.

“We did,” Damen said, smiling guilelessly, “And I saw you talking to his wife as well. A good conversation?”

“Very illuminating.”

Tomorrow, Laurent would have to tell Damen of his suspicions, and there would be a private confrontation between the brothers, one taken down to the training yard that would end in blows and sweat and tears, and an eventual embrace that would leave them closer than ever and make Laurent throw up his hands over the minds of Akielon brutes. For now, he let it pass.

From Damen’s bedroom, they could hear the gentle crash of the waves drifting up from the bottom of the cliffs. Damen smiled changed when he heard it, comfort and satisfaction washing over him like taking off a cloak in a warm room and sinking down by the fire.

“You are glad to be home.”

“Yes. And glad to be showing you my home, as you have shared your home with me.”

He ran his hands over Laurents shoulders until he met the laces in the back and started to untie them, warm intent in ever touch.

“Do you regret staying with me in Arles instead of asking me to return to Ios with you?” asked Laurent.

“Vere grows on you,” said Damen, “And Kastor has ruled without me for a long time. I would not fit here if I suddenly returned. But we can visit often.”

He slid the jacket off Laurent’s back, his broad palms lingering on the skin beneath his shirt.

“Tomorrow, we should find time to take out horses and ride along the beach.”

They were saving a lot of things for tomorrow, in this brief trip. Still, Laurent pictured the moment, hooves pounding on the packed sand and the foam splashing up around them, Damen’s curls tossing in the wind. He leaned back against the warm hands on his shoulder blades.

“I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got me stuck more than I thought it would and I'm not sure I like how it eventually came out, but it's done! My apologies for the typos and mistakes - I am posting this unedited. Thank you for waiting so long for the conclusion of the story, and thank you for everyone who commented! And thank you so much to @Little_white_angel for the incredible art and to the BB mods for running such a great event!

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to @violentincest for beta-ing (check out their story for the Big Bang!) and to @Little_white_angel for their GORGEOUS art that will go up starting with the second chapter! Please checkout Little_white_angel on tumblr under the name [@silverdropart](http://silverdropart.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Chapters should update every two days from now until completion, if I can keep to my editing schedule.
> 
> The lines beginning every chapter are altered lyrics from various versions of the folk song Tam Lin. You can find the author's preferred recordings [ here ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i7EX1tqkJQ) and [ here ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3yTEUnyYDA)!
> 
> This work is also influenced by the books _The Perilous Gard_ by Elizabeth Marie Pope and _Thomas the Rhymer_ by Ellen Kushner, and the fantastic fanfic "Hold Me Fast and Fear Me Not" by the incomparable lady_ragnell.
> 
> Let me know what you think, and COME SCREAM AT LITTLE_WHITE_ANGEL FOR THEIR INCREDIBLE ART IT'S MAGNIFICENT!
> 
> (You can find me on tumblr @covertius-fic. Come say hi!)


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